



































V 


f 


•> • 

. ... 




*1 

- 


I 


f*: 


V * ' 

V : 


'■> :M ■' 



•>* 





♦ 





/ 


■ 









til' 






\ 


// ’ ;*, fci»' • '. '1 




•rt': 


P 


(y 


■4 






»•. ‘1. J 


\P 


:t^‘ 


'S =^- 


¥• 


:c>-o 


i.’ 




•fir 


"I' 


V- 


'i 






4 n ,j 


♦ fc* 


‘ T 






‘if 


I ♦ t 


• 


tV »i 


• I, 




r J $i. 


• . • 


u 


i ) 


*♦ I • 


t * 




*1 




■i<«< 


Mv: 


tt»' 


?.!fl 


Llli.Ti-N' 

%> •*: ■ . 1 




* 't' 


T 


I • 






♦ ^ Kl * 


r * ;Y 


r ‘M. 








> • 


• «' I-*'!* 






il 


f <. 






» V » N I 






h' l^ 


IS’' 














r?' 


fW' 






[lii 


» > 






>•« < 


> *i3 




■ k« 


I' 


y •' 


1*^/ 


•V 


* - -\ > 


111 






<r s 


*. 'I. 




I* 


ly < 


v-.-f-, 


f./. 






'W' 


-j 


:« 


*»'*>• ' 


. i' 


vVyJA 


.+#5 


A * ■* 

" ' lit 








■> 1 


■ * 


>v 




tl' 


>* 


' * I 


r-1 


iTA' 




i:-i. 


, I 






r<|. 


ff t 


• ^ 


r' I 


• j 


f 

WIA^'V 

: ^v. V -h 

■i .>• ' . vfl. 




r.^ II 


i.e' 




..‘I 


VA 


'' t . 'll 


¥\ 




w, 


(. tV, 






« - 


;v. 


r‘_^*rA: M k 


i> 


■% 






*'rjl 


;<s- 


.» ' «• 




^vfnai A 


I'*! 






3s‘ 


< /. 


M » 






• • 


I- i 


-11 


Vt 


Q 


i?5vv 


uA 


>■ ■’f'l 


■dl 


* ' '. 




-'' A^'.V 


L»t 


.v 




.. I 








> 


ar^ 


W: 


A*' n 


r . 


i ^ 


. ✓ 


‘ f 




:v 






i • • 


V 


.?t** 


i- 


ii- 






±'i .y * 


• 7 *> 


V 






ri^. 


i<« 'i 


tp 4 






^ f 


•4.* 


t- 4 






4MM 


Hi 


^ f^V t 


J • 


& 




4 V 


1-^ » 


'i«S 


I ' k 


4tfc 


^ I 


' • J 






a 


A 


4 


? . •'I^P ;{ ■ 


y) 


,1 ’r N 


i-i' 


y 


fJ : J^ 


kr* 




kVt^' 




y'> ■ 




‘^A. 


* *’ 


- I. 


rv« 










i« 




y 


,CV^.\V 


v'V » . 


.*kr 


A' 


I .\^ 









ssuED Monthly" ^UKUst V',), 18U;. Price 25=1? 


Entered at the Post Office at^ New York at Second Class Rates 
Copyrighted by George Munro | 1891— By Subscription $300 per Annum 

' Jc 


No. 35. 










Stilus. 


George f^uNRO Publisher 

17T027 VANDEWATER ST NEW YORK. 



ABANDON PHYSIC! 


o 

o 





o 


o 

;h 

Ph 







< 



m 

c 


«< 


o 

M 

rf- 

0 0^ 

3 ^ 

S VI 

QTQ 2 

OJ «- 

rt* 

cc 


IHIESIINIL TOnPOB UNO KIIRED EVILS 


ki:i.ie:tx:i> witiioijx i>RUOi$. 


The sufferer from Constipation and Piles should test the GliUTEN SUP- 
POSiTORiliS which cure most cases b}' inckkasing thic nutrition of thk 
PARTS, thus inducing desire and strengthening the power of expulsion. 


iei)Ai> xiiE i:Tii>i:3iCK. 


Dr. a. W. Thompson, Northampton, Mass., saj's: “I have tested the Gluten 
Suppositories, and consider them valuable, as, indeed, I expected from the ex- 
cellence of their theory.” 

Dr. \Vm. Tod Hei.muth declares the Gluten Suppositories to be “the best 
remed 3 ' for coustip.itiou which I have ever prescribed.” 

‘•As Smclio Panza said of sleep, so say 1 of your Gluten Suppositories: 
God bless the man who invented them!” — E. L. Ripley, Burlington, Vt. 

” I have been a constipated dyspeptic for iiianj- years, and the effect has 
been to reduce me in flesh, and to render me liable to no little nerve prostration 
and sleeplessness, especially after preaching or any special mental effort. The 
use of Gluten Suppositories, made by the Health Food Co., 61 Fifth Avenue. 
New York, has relieved the constipated habit, and their Gluten and Brain Food 
have secured for me new powers of digestion, and the ability to sleep soundly 
and think clearly. I believe their food-remedies to be worthy of the high praise 
\' liich ihej’ are receiving on all sides.”— Rev. John H. Baton. Mich. 

” I cannot speak too highly of the Health Food Compain ’s Gluten Suppos- 
itories. as they have been a perfect God-send to me. 1 believe them superior to 
anvtbing ever devised for the relief of constipation and hemorrhoids. I have 
suffered from these evils more than twenty years, and have at last found sub- 
stantial relief through the use of the Gluten Suppositories.”— Cyrus Bradbury 
Hopedale, Mass. ’ 


1 prescribe the Gluten Suppositories almost dailv in mv practice, and am 
often astonished at the permanent results obtained.” -J. Montfort Schley 
M. D., Professor Physical Diagnosis "Woman’s IMedical College. New York Citv’ 
“ I have been using them with excellent results.”— F. H. Williams, M D ' 
Trenton, N. J. 

Have used a half dozen, and never had anything give me so much satis- 
faction.”— A. P. Charlton, M. D.. Jenneville, Pa. 

. Gluten Suppositories in my family with great satisfac- 

tion,”— S. B. Cowles, President Pacific Bank, Clarks, Nebraska. 

I ha^ had some very satisfactory ex|)erience in the treatment of consti- 
pation with your Wheat Gluten Suppositories.”— Charles W. Benedict M D 
Findlay, Ohio, ’ ‘ 


iiKAi/rii Fooi> ro:Tii»A'\v, 

'41 Filth Avenue, cor. Tliirteentli St., New Vor»- C'ity; 199 Treiiioiii 

St., noston. 



“Worth a Guinea a Box,** 

But sold by all Druggists at 25 cents. 

A Wonderful Medicine 

FOR ALL 

Bilious and Nervous Disorders 

SUCH AS 

Sick Headache, 
Constipation, 

Weak Stomach, 
Impaired Digestion, 
Disordered Liver, Etc. 

Prepared ONLY byTHOS. BEECHAM, St. Helens, Lancashire, En«, 
B. F. ALLEN CO., Sole Agents for United States, 365 & 367 
Canal St. New York, who (if your druggist does not keep them) will mail 
Beecham’s Pills on receipt of price, asc.— but Inquire first. Correspond* 
ents will please mention tlie name of the publication in which, this 
Advertisement is seen. 


MUJ^RO^S PUBLICATIONS. 


MUNRO’S FRENCH SERIES. 

No. 1. An Elementary Grammar of the French Language. 

By ILLION CONSTELLANO. 

Nos. 2 and 3. Practical Guides to the French Language. 

By LUCIEN OUDIN, A.M. 

PRICE 25 CENTS EACH. 


HUNTEES’ YAENS: 

A Collection of Wild and A musing A dventures 

PRICE 25 CENTS. 


KMen Lessons for Yorai Hoiseleepers. 

By ANNIE H. JER03IE. 

PRICE 10 CENTS. 

lETTlE-IEIIM MADE EASY. 

PRICE 10 CENTS. 


Munro’s Dialogues and Speakers. 

No. 1. The Funny Fellow’s Dialogues. 

No. 2. The Clemence and Donkey Dialogues. 

No. 3. Mrs, Smith’s Boarders’ Dialogues. 

No. 4. Schoolboys’ Comic Dialogues. 

No. 1. Vot I Know ’Bout Gruel Societies Speaker. 

No. 2. The John B. Go-off Comic Speaker. 

No. 3. My Boy Vilhelm’s Speaker. 

PRICE 10 CENTS EACH. 


The above works are for sale by air newsdeafers, or will be sent by mail on 
receipt of the price. Address 

GEORQil MUNEO, Munro’s Publishing House, 

(P. O. Box 3751.) 17 to 27 Vandewater Street, New York. 


THE 


Little Light-House Lass; 


THE WORLD WELL LOST. 


ELIZABETH STILES. 



NEW YORK: 

GEORGE MUNRO, PUBLISHER, 

17 TO 27 Yandewater Street. 


Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1888, by 
GEORGE MUNRO, 

in the Offlce of the Librarian q/ Congress, Washington, D. C. 


The Little Light-house Lass, 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


CHAPTER 1. ^ 

“Uncle Brian! such news! Valerie^s house is to be 
filled with company from New York. They come the day 
after to-morrow, and she is going to give a grand yachting 
party, and she has asked for me. ” 

There was a rush, a rustle as of fresh south wind, as the 
breathless words were clattered forth in a high, sweet 
voice, and old Brian Vorn turned his head as the helian- 
thus seeks the sun; if he had been blind and deaf almost, 
he would have known when Trix approached. The rich, 
almost overwhelming life of the girl seemed to make itself 
manifest to all those in her vicinity in a sort of contagious 
vivacity. 

As Brian saw the tall, slender girl now standing beside 
Trix, he rose upon his one leg with that punctilious cere- 
mony inseparable from the old-time seaman, and bowed 
formally to pretty, fashionable Valerie Dyncourt. 

“ Very kind of Miss Valerie,^' ho said, in a voice that 
seemed to have caught a little of the hoarse roar of those 
life-long friends of his — the waves. 

“ And Valerie is expecting some one else,'^ cut in Trix, 
blithely. “ The rich and elegant southerner, Felix Carew, 
from 8outh Carolina. He is the intimate friend of Mr. 


6 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


St. Clair, now stopping at her house, and Mr. St. Clair is 
an old friend of her aunt Paula. Mr. Carevy will be here 
in a few days, and it is for him the yachting party is to be 
given. ” 

After the delivery of this vital information the two girls 
sauntered on down toward the bay, leaving the old light- 
keeper standing alone by the deep -set door of his light- 
house, through which in the next moment emerged a tall, 
gaunt-figured old woman, with so foreign and peculiar a 
countenance that no one for an instant would have im- 
agined her to be a native of this bleak, barren Jersey coast. 

Until within a few years Brian Vorn had been captain 
of *a trading schooner, and in that capacity had visited 
almost every country. 

Once, while in port in the tropics, he had come across 
the woman now by his side, struggling and shrieking in 
the hands of a slave-dealer. 

He had rescued her, and thus won her eternal gratitude, 
took her aboard his vessel, and assigned to her the duty of 
looking after Miss Trix. 

That young lady was then three years of age, and upon 
her first trip with her beloved uncle. 

After that it was his custom to^take the woman Guilda 
and the child on all his voyages, except in the roughest 
winter weather, when they were left at home in the cap- 
tain’s little cabin that was situated close to the elegant 
home of Valerie Dyncourt and her aunt Paula. 

But increasing years, knd finally the loss of one of his 
legs, compelled Brian Vorn to abandon the sea, and, 
friends interceding, the government, about four years pre- 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS, 7 

vious to the opening of our story, assigned him the posi- 
tion of keeper of a light-house on the coast. 

Now, as Guilda came out and stood beside her master, 
her still keen and mysterious eyes turned in a troubled 
look to where the two girls were slowly walking to the 
landing where Valerie^s boat and boatman and French 
maid awaited the young heiress, who frequently visited 
the light-keeper^s family. 

Guilda was a woman of uncommonly few words, which 
made more noticeable the vehement speech into which 
she now burst. 

“ They are too much together — too much!^/ she ex*- 
claimed, in her foreign accent. Though she runs after 
Trix when the gay guests are gone from her fine home, I 
have always felt that Miss Valerie did not like our little 
girl. I tell you there will trouble come from this inti- 
macy. God help little Trix if she ever falls to Miss Dyn- 
court’s mercy 

There was such a quality of impressiveness in the old 
woman^s voice that Captain Vorn's rugged, weather- 
beaten face gathered a startled, anxious look. 

“It is an old woman-’s fancy, quoth he at last, in the 
roughest voice that eyer belied the kindest, warmest heart 
that ever beat. “ Tve never had any cause to doubt Miss 
Valerie, though, to be sure, there^s some dark old stories 
about the stock she springs from. Besides, you speak as 
if Trix had no strength or will power. Small and beauti- 
ful and careless and willful as the girl is, she has in her the 
courage of a hundred lions. Have you forgotten the time 
when 1 was ill on board the schooner, and the crew, then 


8 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


half drunk, swore that they would get at the rum-locker 
or die? Have you forgotten how she took my place and 
stood over the chest with a drawn pistol, nor let a man 
come near it until help came from a neighboring vessel? 
And she was only twelve years old then. 

“ I have not forgotten, murmured old Guilda, tremu- 
lously. “ She is too daring for her good. But where 
craft and artifice are concerned she is as an infant, and 
Valerie Dyncourt is one mass of deception. 

With which the old woman turned and walked rapidly 
toward the beach, where she unloosed a sturdy boat be- 
longing to the light-house, and, entering it, was soon on 
her way toward the main-land, where she desired to make a 
few simple purchases at the small village dotting the bay 
line. 

The party of visitors had also embarked, and Trix came 
bounding back from the beach to Captain Brian. 

After the departure the long, narrow strip of beach 
upon which the light-house was perched seemed to develop 
even an unusual dreariness. 

Here under the shadow of the smooth, white, high walls 
little was visible save the great green restless waves that 
penned it in. * 

On one side were the broad waters of the bay, on the 
other, stretching far away, were the vast plains of the At- 
lantic, that in endless frenzy and fury beat against the 
high sand-banks that here define the coast. 

As the old man and the small, wondrous, exquisite creat- 
ure they had named Trix stood there side by side, they 


THE LITTLE LiaHT-HOUSE LASS. 


9 


and their solitary surroundings seemed part and parcel of 
another world. 

Beyond the hollow, melancholy booming of the ocean 
not a sound broke the intense stillness that encompassed 
them, save the wailing cry of a sea-bird, as anon it flew 
low over the beach, and the distant boom of some minute- 
gun. 

The late afternoon was passing into an early evening, 
filled with the presage of storm. 

In the west a yellow, brassy sun at times showed fitfully 
through banks of deepening clouds, while the sea ran 
mountains high. 

As again that hollow, distant sound of the gun floated 
out across the angry waters, speaking of trouble and per- 
haps death, the old light-keeper turned his eyes across the 
waves in grim commiseration, 

“ Some poor souls in danger,^’ he muttered. Then he 
turned and looked across the bay, where Guilda^s stout 
craft looked but a sj^eck upon its disquieted bosom. 

“ There^s going to be dirty weather before morning,^^ 
he continued. “ Guilda ought not to have ventured to the 
main-land to-night. But she is as stubborn as a mule, and 
was bent on going. 

“ 1 told her not to dare to attempt to come back to- 
night if the weather was no better j she could stay with our 
friend, the postmistress,^^ said Trix, with her majestic air 
of command that, with her diminutive stature, constituted 
one of the many fascinating contradictions that rendered 
this small personage so irresistible. 

Brian turned with admiration to the girl’s lovely, dusk 


10 


THE LITTLE LI«HT-HOUSE LASS. 


face, and straightened his still erect figure with the motion 
with which he had been wont to command his crew's at- 
tention years ago on board his good ship “ Trix." 

So long* and complete was their comradeship, that the 
girl understood every look and motion of the old sea-dog, 
and now, perceiving by that attitude that his mood was a 
serious one, instantly gave the customary response by un- 
consciously drawing her elfin form erect in a pretty, pomp- 
ous air of imitation, perfectly sincere with her, while her 
soft, laughing, wicked little face grew serious and alert. 

“ Mate," trumpeted the ex-sea-captain in his most pro- 
fessional tone. 

“ Ay, ay, sir," came in prompt response from the 
“mate." 

“ 1 don’t believe that pretty little craft that has just 
sailed away from us is sea- worthy; keep an eye to her; 
there’s something wrong with her timbers. Valerie’s her 
name. She’d sink you if she could." 

This intelligence was so astounding that for the time be- 
ing the mate lost her professional gravity and consequential 
attitude. 

“ Good gracious, you dear old gander! How perfectly 
ridiculous!" she gasped. “ Valerie? Why, she loves me 
— she could not exist without me." 

The captain likewise lost a little of his marine dignity 
under this assurance, and regarded the little figure bris- 
tling before him with keen solicituda 

“ Are you sure, Trix? Well, any way, I reckon you 
could "hold your own against her. You’re a vixen, 'mate, 
and I believe Miss Valerie is a bit afraid of your tongue." 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS., 


11 


“ To be sure she is,’^ responded the mate, with graceless 
alacrity. “ Dear Valerie, I love her; but she is so absurd 
with her airs and importance, that 1 put it to you. Uncle 
Brian, donT 1 have to take her in — reef her sails once in 
awhile?’^ 

The old sailor^ s - bronzed visage during this conversation 
had been losing a portion of that vague disquiet that it had 
gathered at Guilda^s portentous words. 

He knew Trix for a little termagant, albeit a very lova- 
ble, charm ing---one, and he grew more assured as his brain 
was crossed by certain recollections of her capabilities of 
will and temper, and of that stronger phase of her char- 
acter, so far generally slumbering, but occasionally called 
into splendid activity as in such instances as that of the 
liquor-chest and the mutinous sailors. 

Honest, upright old man — willful, intrepid, defiant girl. 
Neither took into consideration the force and the peiils of 
a hidden warfare — that deadly venom that strikes in the 
dark. Neither realized that while some natures n^ight 
shrink from provoking open, honest indignation, they 
might yet in secret wage a deadly conflict, striking with 
poisoned weapons that dealt death and ruin. 

Suddenly, as they stood talking, a man stepped from be- 
hind the light-house^s bare, towering walls — a man tall, 
slender, with a soft, silken, panther-like beauty at strong 
variance with the rough clothing which he wore, a man 
whose dark velvety eyes one instinctively felt could smile 
with heaven^s softness or flash with the uncontrollable fury 
of a demon incarnate. 

Though his complexion was a clear dark olive, and his 


13 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


eyes were black as a southern midnight, his hair and mus- 
tache were of a ruddy hue little short of Crimson. 

An acute observer would have declared that this man, 
whoever he might be, was in disguise. 

And that his purpose was a desperate one no soul could 
doubt who saw the glittering fire of his eyes, and that 
nervous, wicked gnawing of his thin, statuesque under lip. 

Could he go through the light-house? he inquired in a 
peculiarly low, slow voice. He would esteem it a great 
favor if Captain Vorn would accommodate him. 

Captain Vorn would not accommodate him. It was past 
the hour. No visitors were admitted save between the 
hours of ten and two. 

Trix^s bright eyes fixed upon him saw that their strange 
visitor was secretly convulsed with fury; but he maintained 
his courtesy. 

Would money be any inducement to stretch the rule a 
little in his favor? If so, he would be most happy to — 

There was a whiz, a whack, and the handful of coin was 
sent spinning across the sands by one well-directed blow of 
Trix's hand, while that young person confronted the 
would-be briber like a small fury. 

“ Take that, and learn not to insult your betters she 
panted. “ Leave us, or I will lose the dog on you!^^ 

And now for the first time a huge blood-hound rose from 
where he had been crouching in the sand by the door, and 
with bristling hair and blood-shot, menacing eyes advanced 
the length of his chain, where he stood with his gaze fixed 
upon the man. 

That the creature was superbly trained was evident from 


THE LITTLE LlGHT-HOtJSE LASS. 


13 


the quickness with which he obeyed his mistresses low 

On guard, ee and crouched down again upon the sands, 
ready to spring if his chain should be loosened. 

This precaution of Trix’s was not wholly without cause, 
for the eyes of the stranger, as they dwelt upon her, had 
gathered a look of baffled fury and hatred that made per- 
sonal violence seem not impossible. 

“ She speaks well, sir. Go,^^ said Brian Vorn, in a 
voica of gruff pride. “ Whatever be your purpose for 
visiting my light-house, I can not be bribed.-’^ 

For an instant longer that fierce, concentrated look was 
directed to the angry girl, then the man turned, without a 
word, from the spot, and his tall, sinewy form hurried 
along the dreary, misty beach. 

“ Trix — Trix, your temper will be your ruin,^’ mur- 
mured the old light-keeper, his troubled glance following 
the retreating form of their strange visitor in a sort of 
prophetic apprehension. “ You have made an enemy in 
that man, and his anger will follow you to the day of your 
death, and if ever you should be thro wrr with him again 
he will remember this day against you.” 

“ The wretch!” stormed Trix, as unimpressionable to 
fear as a young lion cub. “ The idea of his trying to buy 
you! I wish 1 had boxed his ears for him!” 

The hour had come for lighting the lamp. 

High up in her tower stood the little light-house lass, her 
glance turned out to that seething, turbulent waste, in 
whose treacherous embrace struggled many a good ship 
whose crew was never to see the light of another dawn. 

Some such thought must have crossed the girl's mind. 


14 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


for her lovely, laughing face grew somber with gloom, 
showing how strong were the emotions of this winsome, 
variable little maiden, and how overheavy for her gay, 
tender soul would be that burden of woe which fatalists 
tell us must sooner or later overtake every human being. 

At last Trix turned and left the place filled with the 
sound of shrieking winds and the hollow thunder of stormy 
seas. 

She locked the door carefully behind her, ran with swift, 
light feet down the numerous flights of narrow winding 
stairs, until she stood in the neat sitting-room. 

In this room were neatly arranged the curiosities and 
souvenirs that Brian had collected in his ocean life and 
visits to strange lands. 

As the girl bounded into the room the old man turned 
to her and said: 

“ I am almost sure I heard a voice down toward the 
bay. It sounded like the voice of some one in distress. 

Trix looked startled. 

“ Can it be Guilda?’^ she cried, springing to a cloest 
and taking down a rubber cloak and sou- tester that had 
done her good service in many a storm. 

“ Trix,^^ cried old Brian, involuntarily, “ donT go out 
— that stranger has made me nervous,^’ 

“ Nonsense!'" returned the girl, with a brave, bright 
smile. “ It must not be said of Brian Vorn and his mate 
that they let any one perish without going to their aid. 1 
will be back in a little while;" and calling to the dog, she 
passed out into the gloom and storm of this awful night. . 

It was no uncommon thing for her to wander about the 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


15 


beach on stormy nights like this. There was in her a sort 
of restlessness like that of the raging storm which drove 
her out to mingle with the warring elements. 

Brian Vorn had reared his beloved ‘‘mate^^ to the 
hardness of a young whale-calf. Wind and water no more 
affected her than that monster of the deep, and fear was 
as little known to her. Along the coast she was known to 
the brave, intrepid crews of the life-saving stations and re- 
spected by them as a prodigy in point of courage and dar- 
ing. She had saved more than one life from the waves. 

But now it was a fooTs errand on which the brave girl 
had gone. She returned an hour later to find her uncle 
bound and gagged upon the fioor. In unutterable horror 
she bent over him and removed the gag. 

“ The lamp — the lamp!"^ the old man panted. 
“ Never mind me. To the tower, mate! take the dog and 
pistols. That devil has returned and is tampering with 
the light. 

Trix waited for no more. She sprung to the shelf where 
the pistols were kept. They were gone. Undismayed^ 
she called to the dog. There again helplessness and de- 
feat confronted her. The blood-hound was acting singu- 
larly in the door-way. For the first time in his life he re- 
fused to budge at the sound of her voice. 

Daring to wait no longer, this fearless, fierce, small 
creature leaped up the tower steps two at a time. Her 
blood was lashed to fury. Her face was white as deaths 
and, in the horror of the thought of the lamps being tarn- ' 
pered with and of all that meant to ships passing by, she 
never for an instant gave a thought to her own great danger. 


16 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


CHAPTER 11. 

Panting, gasping, quivering in every limb, but with a 
fearless courage and fury burning in her glittering eyes, 
Trix at last reached the head of the stairs and flung her- 
self into the lamp-room. 

In this apartment, which held the fate of — Heaven knew 
how many — seamen now at the mercy of the waves, the 
girl came face to face with that soft-eyed, velvet-clawed 
brute who had presented himself at the light-house earlier 
in the evening. 

As she entered, the ‘man muttered an oath, and invol- 
untarily fell back a step from the great shining beacon 
that half blinded both the individuals thus strangely 
brought together. 

“ Monster — devil! what would you do here?'' panted 
the girl, as with white lips she flung herself upon that 
slender form that yet had the thews and sinews of a gladi- 
ator. 

With one soft, bronze hand the man held her off at 
arm's-length, and as he looked steadily into her gleaming, 
glorious face, slowly a reluctant admiration grew in his 
dusky, almond-shaped eyes. 

He was filled with admiration, not so much for her 
beauty, which yet he confessed was matchless in its wild, 
hizarre style, but for the grand, impetuous, fearless spirit 
that breathed in her every look and gesture, and which her 
small but exquisite form seemed incapable of containing. 

“By Heaven!" he ejaculated, in a sort of half-savage 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


17 


homage, “ you must have the courage and the madness of 
a Joan of -Arc to venture here.^^ 

With the furious, untamed grace of a desert steed, Trix 
threw back from her moist brow the glorious raven-black 
hair that swept to her little heels, planted so firmly upon 
the stone floor of the lamp-room. 

“ Courage!’^ she cried, in her high, sweet, derisive 
voice, while her great eyes, that were like points of flame, 
flashed into his a world of haughty scorn and defiance. 
“ So you then know woman so little that you fancy it re- 
quires that attribute to face a coward who attacks only 
cripples and children, who would feign the voice of one in 
distress to lure a helpless girl out of his way while he 
bound and gagged an already disabled old man?’^ for of a 
sudden the true ^Explanation of that call that her uncle 
Brian had heard flashed upon her. 

In the terrible fury roused by her burniog denunciation, 
the man’s delicate Greek face seemed to grow white. But 
he clinched her small wrist like a vise with his steel-like 
hand, while his eyes glowed with the murderous savageness 
of a panther’s. 

High up there, above every earthly thing, amid the 
hideous roar of the surf and tempest, the two presented a 
strangely impressive spectacle as they faced each other in 
that momentary dearth of human sounds. 

At last, with the slow, graceful motion of a serpent, the 
man stooped his handsome head— handsome despite that 
disfiguring shock of ruddy hair. 

“ Do you know what you tempt me to do with your ac- 
cursed ungovernable tongue?” he hissed. 


18 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


There was no disguise in his voice now — full, soft, mel- 
low as the murmur of some southern sea, yet with the 
venomous hiss of the cobra de capello, it fell upon her ear, 
half cKarming, while it filled her soul with a deadly terror 
that nothing else but that vein of superstition in her could 
have aroused. 

Yet even while she was conscious of this peculiar sensa- 
tion, the dauntless courage and fiery wrath in her never 
wavered. 

“ How do I know— what do I care what you are tempted 
to do! Nothing but a craven's act, ITl stake my life!" 
she cried, in her haughty insolence. 

Those smoldering, amber eyes regarding her grew more 
glittering in their mystic fires, while the thin, perfect lips 
parted in a slow peculiar smile more *terrible in its chill 
menace than a volume of imprecations would have been. 

“ Well, since you have no curiosity, I will tell you," he 
said, his regular teeth gleaming white in that ugly smile. 
“ I have a great mind to open one of these windows " — 
glancing at the thick plate glass surrounding them — “ and 
fling you down upon the sands below. What do you say?'^ 

Despite her reckless daring, Trix broke into an irre- 
pressible shudder as her strange companion thus put into 
words the horrible fate that he could indeed deal out to 
her at will. 

Those dizzy, hideous depths below! — to be hurled down 
to them through this misty, tempestuous night— to be 
picked up in the morning dead, all bruised and crushed 
and broken! Oh, horrible — horrible! 

And yet this awful thought scarcely had power to con- 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 19 

trol the fiery temper of Brian Vorn^s first mate. She 
thrust her little savage, vixenish face into that strangely 
beautiful but evil one above her, and hurled back her an- 
swer into his teeth : 

I say that you are a coward, with only courage to 
murder women; and I say, too, that 1 wish I had set my 
dog on you this evening when I had the chance, and had 
him tear you limb from limb.'' 

Again that splendid yet bitterly malignant smile curved 
the lips from which swept the silken, dyed mustache, as 
the girl, in a sudden access of agitation, lifted her voice 
and called the blood-hound's name. 

“He will not come," he observed, with fiendish tran- 
quillity. “ I placed a slice of meat convenient to him 
which will have the effect of reducing your amiable favor- 
ite to a tractable state, for at least the present. But if it 
were otherwise, I could soon settle him with those," and 
his glance strayed carelessly to where the light-keeper's 
pistols lay at his feet. 

But Trix, the defiant fires in her large eyes suddenly 
quenched, her savage, small face all broken up with vehe- 
ment grief, looked like a very Niobe. - . 

“Oh, Lion — my faithful, brave, precious Lion! You 
have poisoned him!" she shrieked, as she burst into a pas- 
sion of tears. 

The man stared at her for full a minute with a look of 
the utmost amazement, then an imprecation broke from 
between his gleaming teeth. 

“ The saints defend us! What have we here?" he mut- 
tered, involuntarily. “ An idiot that jeers at the idea of 


20 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


being thrown ov^ a hundred feet into the sea, yet who is 
ready to weep her life out at thoughts of harm to a dog.^^ 

“You butcher — fiend — ghoul!'’ wailed Trix, her bosom 
convulsed with sobs, her beautiful eyes beginning to flash 
again through their tears. 

Again the man's countenance, that was like delicate 
bronze, flushed darkly at her epithets, his breathing quick- 
ened. 

“ Listen to me, and bear this well in mind," he uttered, 
in a concentrated voice: “ The day will come when I shall 
either love or kill you — most probably it will be the lat- 
ter." 

In her grief and excitement, Trix heard the strange 
words, which seemed launched forth by some power be- 
yond the speaker, like one in a dream. 

But long afterward they returned to her with the re- 
vived horror of this moment along with a terrible signifi- 
cance. 

But now, something of more immediate importance 
claimed her attention. Still holding her with one hand, 
her companion drew from his pocket some strohg thongs, 
and with these he proceeded to bind the rebellious hands. 

Trix fought like a little trapped animal— struggling, 
twisting, hanging a dead weight on her captor— but in 
vain. 

Yet she was not exactly an easy conquest, and in the 
struggle the man's left sleeve became pushed far dp, dis- 
closing the graceful, sinewy olive-hued arm. 

Like one in a nightmare Trix observed this, and in the 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


01 

-vi. 


next instant the desperate girl had bent down her head 
and buried her little sharp teeth deep in the exposed flesh. 

A suppressed cry of rage and pain broke from the man, 
but in the next breath he had her securely bound. He 
then stepped back, and, with his right hand pressed to the 
wound, glanced once involuntarily, with a sort of fierce 
longing, at the window, where the stormy darkness of the 
upper atmosphere was driven in upon this startling 
tableau. 

Perhaps never, until the last great moment came, was 
Trix so near death as in this instant. 

‘‘ Heaven and earth! why don^t I kill you?'^ he mut- 
tered. “ You have marked me for life — you have given 
me a foretaste of perdition in the accursed smart of this 
wound, and yet 1 have so far let you go comparatively 
free.^^ 

Even amid the excitement of the moment Trix was con- 
scious of a wild thrill of exultation. She had placed her 
mark upon him — this demon incarnate. If he let her live 
to go free, she would know him if ever again they should 
meet in life. 

For her teeth had almost met in his arm, and to his 
dying day must he carry with him the ineffaceable scar 
they had made. 

“ But we have wasted enough time in exchanging pleas- 
antries,^^ continued her companion, a dark smile flitting 
momentarily across his lips. “ Your life is in your hands. 
Move from where you are, utter a word, and you are lost!^^ 

There was a desperate sincerity in those cool, silken 
tones_that Trix knew would bear no trifling. 


22 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


She stood mute and motionless, while the man ap- 
proached the lamp and turned down the huge wick until 
♦ there remained only a faint glimmer invisible twenty feet 
out upon the seas. 

She stared at him in wild fright and horror. Of a sud- 
den she comprehended his purpose. For some devilish de- 
sign of his own he had put out the light to lure some ship 
upon the sands! And the seamen, missing the light — 
their bearings lost — would strike upon those deadly shoals 
and go down in the storm and the night. 

For an instant such a sickness seized Trix under that 
thought that she felt that she should drop dead then and 
there. 

In the next she rallied and a blessed idea flashed into 
her brain and brought the color back to her tell-tale, mo- 
bile face. 

“ Thank God, your evil work can not last long,^^ she 
exclaimed, half under her breath. “ Ours is a revolving 
light The people on the main-land as well as the surf- 
men down the beach will miss the light, and a score of 
people will be here in less than an hour to set things 
right 

The man started violently at those mad, foolish words 
that put him so gloriously on his guard. Ah! silly, pas- 
sionate Trix! had but that impulsive tongue of yours for 
once kept silence, there might yet have been some hope 
for the brave mariners that you love as brothers. * 

Help might have come — no doubt would — and relighted 
the friendly beacon. Now hope was dead. 

The man rolled up the wick until the great light flashed 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. ' 2S 

out SO brilliantly that both were obliged to turn away from 
the gleaming lenses into the rainy, windy darkness with- 
out, 

“ Thank you for doing me that favor/ ^ he said, with a 
slow, amused smile. ‘ ‘ What an ass I was. Through 
your kindness, I will invent another plan. 

And then as his eyes grew more accustomed to the glare 
he turned, but with his lids half closed, and taking off his 
voluminous rubber cloak hung it securely across the sea- 
ward windows. 

“ To make matters doubly secure I will trouble you for 
the loan of your cloak also,^^ he said, turning to Trix with 
mock courtesy. 

The girl gave a hunted, desperate look around; there 
was no help, no hope. She was wholly at the mercy of 
this man to whom her madness had supplied so good an 
idea for his deadly purpose. 

With her face grown ashen and pinched in her deadly 
horror, and even her lips white as chalk, she mutely sub- 
mitted while he took off her thick rubber cloak, which in 
a trice he stretched across the windows. This prevented 
all possibility of a ray of light reaching the seas, while the 
landward windows were exposed. The revolving flashes 
would at proper intervals strike across the country the 
same as usual, and thus prevent all suspicion of the horri- 
ble truth. 

“ Now be quiet and make yourself as comfortable as 
possible, continued the man in whose merciless power 
she was. “ You have only to wait until the proper time, 
when I will release you.-’^ 


24 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


The momeats that passed after that in the light-tower 
were freighted with a suspense and agony that never would 
fade from Trix’s memory. 

Slowly— -slowly, they dragged by, while the girl stood 
there, her starting, unseeing eyes staring out into the 
night, her face drawn and colorless as snow and wet as 
with the dew of death. 

For it was this awful thought that was filling all her 
brain with a frenzied fire that with each passing moment 
some doomed ship was drawing near and nearer the 
shoals, against which there was no blessed light to warn it. 

Once she turned with a gestui-e of unconscious madness 
to the man standing supple and still by her side. 

Bred to a sea-faring life, there was in her bosom a pas- 
sionate devotion for all mariners and shipping that was a 
part of her very existence. 

Now, again, in her appearance, the fiery, untamable 
spirit that rendered her so altogether irresistible was van- 
quished. 

Her large eyes were filled with tears, her face, yearn- 
ing, broken, tender, yet bore the impress of a splendid 
heroism. Involuntarily she reached forth her trembling 
hands to the alert, dusky-visaged being so attentively re- 
garding her. 

“ Better one life than many— take mine,” she mur- 
mured, in a voice thick with sobs. “ Fling me down on 
the sands, if you will; but spare the ship and her crew.” 

“ Fool,” he said, in his chill, smooth voice, that yet was 
like the snapping of steel, “hold that worthless little 
t;ongue of yours, or you will tempt me to do both.” 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


25 


Then even as he spoke, up through the spray and the 
wind and the driving rain came to their ears the hollow, 
distant boom of a gun. 

With a low moan of utter agony Trix reeled back 
against the wall, where she leaned like one death-stricken. 

“ It is a ship; she has struck the shoals, she muttered, 
with lips dry and white. 

Again and again came the hollow boom of the gun, 
every echo stabbing her heart like a knife, as she stood 
there sick with the great horror of knowing that but a step 
down the beach some noble vessel was at that instant 
struggling in the trough of the stormy sea, foundering on 
the shoals to which the fiend beside her had lured it. 

She knew how like death these sounds were to the old 
light-keeper, bound below, and a gasping, choking sob 
broke in her heaving throat, though her eyes were glassy, 
dry and burning. 

At last her companion turned to her; even his counte- 
nance had lost a trifie of its color, but his lips were curved 
in ar peculiar smile, and his long, velvety eyes gleamed 
with a triumphant glow. 

“ You are free,^^ he said, in his low, flute-like tones, as 
with one pass of his knife he cut the thongs binding her. 
“ But do not leave this room until the light has revolved 
a dozen times. You had better count to make sure, or it 
may be the worse for that old man down below. 

With which he took down liis cloak from the window, 
where it had done such service, restored the girl hers, with 
the graceful bow of one used to drawing-rooms, and, turn- 
ing, left the place. 


56 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE, LASS. 


Left alone, Trix, more dead than alive, waited for the 
designated time to pass. When it was up she staggered 
from the room, and to her dying day she never knew how, 
weak and trembling and half fainting as she was, she ever 
got down the long flight of winding stairs. 

She remembered nothing until she found herself kneel- 
ing by her nucleus side, with shaking fingers cutting the 
ropes that bound him. 

Few words passed between the two comrades. 

As old Brian staggered stiffly up, with his maters assist- 
ance, his stern, bleached lips moved, his voice was hoarse 
and tremulous: 

“A. ship has struck while the light was out.^^ For 
from the seaward window of the room the light-keeper 
had been made aware of what had happened in the tower. 
“ From the sound of her guns she must be near Life Saving 
Station No. — . It's not over two miles ofi. Eun up to 
the station and see what has happened." 

“ Ay, ay, sir!" but the little mate's response had none 
of its customary ringing fire and spirit — was in fact little 
more than a wail as she turned and once again sped out 
into the gloom of that fatal night. 

With fleet feet she ran along the beach toward the spot 
where the stranded vessel heaved and labored in the death- 
dealing breakers, unconscious that she was speeding to her 
fate. 

CHAPTEE III. 

Scene: a long, luxurious, spacious salon at The Break- 
ers, the home of Valerie Dyncourt. 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


27 


Time: ten o^clo'ck of the same momentous night with 
whose events we have been dealing, or about one hour 
after the striking of the ship upon the shoals. 

Dramatis personm : Mrs. Paula Dyncourt, a tall, spare 
but attractive woman, bordering upon forty, elegantly 
clad in a black lace evening robe, and Valerie, rpsplenden^ 
in an equally faultless attire of azure satin, which well be- 
came her fair, slender beauty. 

Mrs. Dyncourt reclined in a huge velvet chair, idly 
moving to and fro a little costly Indian screen between her 
and the lamp, an occupation that the widow was well 
aware showed to perfection her white, slender hands glit- 
tering with their old-time gems. 

As has already been stated, she was an attractive, well- 
preserved woman, who might well pass for thirty-five, 
despite a certain slight ruddiness of complexion which 
afforded ill-natured people an opportunity for asserting 
that the fair widow was secretly rather given to ‘‘ looking 
upon the wine when it is red. ” 

“It is quite altogether absurd the degree of intimacy 
there is between you and~Trix Vorn,^^ Paula was saying, 
in her slightly sharp metallic voice. “ When you were 
children it was difierent. But now that you are grown 
up, and the time has come for you to take your proper 
station in the world, such an acquaintance can only be a 
bore and a burden 

“I am well aware of that fact, my dear tante/^ mur- 
mured Valerie, idly toying with the pendant of a valuable 
bracelet encircling her snowy arm. “ And yet it is so 

dreai’y here out of season, and the creature is so droll with 
{ 


28 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


her tempers and her monkeyishness. ' She is always a 
curiosity and a diversion for me.^^ 

“ I grant you that/^ returned Mrs. Dyncourt, dryly. 
“ But you are singularly obtuse if it has never occurred 
to you that in proportion to her odd and fantastic fascina- 
tions our attractiveness may diminish. 

A frown crossed Valerie’s brow, giving to her fair face a 
particularly sullen and forbidding aspect. 

“ I have thought of that, tante,'* she replied, musingly. 
“ But it hasn’t mattered much so far; there has been 
nobody here that it signified whether she eclipsed me or 
not.” 

“ Very true; but I tell you candidly, Valerie, the creat- 
ure is one whose equal you would scarcely come across, let 
you travel through a whole continent. And I furthermore 
confess that no man in whom I was interested should ever, 
with my knowledge, be thrown much in her society.” 

Valerie’s face darkened until it wore an expression of 
that jealous vindictiveness that old Guilda’s sharp instincts 
had apprised her existed latently in that young lady’s nat- 
ure. 

Life-long friends though they were, in Valerie’s cold, 
azure eyes burned a positive hatred of the girl whose su- 
perior beauty she had never realized until within the few 
past weeks. 

“ For which reason you have taken such pains to keep 
Mr. St. Clair out of Trix’s way, that he has never yet 
caught a glimpse of her, or even knows that there is such 
a person,” observed Valerie, with a slight sneer, apropos 
of her aunt’s last observation. 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


^9 


“ Exactly,^’ retorted Mrs. Dyncourt, with the utmost 
composure. “ Poverty in 6ur early days separated Ar- 
mand and me. I married my second cousin, who soon 
after lost his fortune, when I was obliged to go to my 
brother, your father, for a home. Armand remained sin- 
gle, and at about the time my husband lost his wealth, in- 
herited an immense fortune through a succession of un- 
timely deaths. Thus adversely and variedly fate has dealt 
with us.^^ 

Valerie stood by the long French window gazing morose- 
ly out into the tempestuous night. Her appearance be- 
trayed little interest in her aunt^s recital, yet that lady 
continued: 

“ As you are aware, two years ago my husband died, 
and I am now free to think of the one man whom 1 am 
not ashamed to confess I have ever loved. 

Paula Dyncourt's voice had grown tremulous with an 
emotion that few regarding her cold, polished exterior 
would have accredited her with the power of experiencing. 

Valerie turned to her aunt now with some interest. 

“ Has he spoken — are you betothed?^^ she inquired. 

“ Not in so many words; but his every act and glance 
assure me that he has been true to his early love. And 
now you see why it is that with almost my very life 1 
would guard Armand from any wiles that I fancied resist- 
less, and I do believe that Trix would be irresistible to nine 
masculine hearts out of ten. There is in her a combina- 
tion of daring recklessness and timidity, of fury and ten- 
derness that render her, according to my knowledge of the 
world, simply incomparable.^^ 


30 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


“ The little beast!"" muttered Valerie, her countenance 
suddenly filling with a look of indescribable rage. “ What 
business has she, a nameless nobody, to be so far superior 
to you and me!"" 

“ You have said,"" proceeded Paula"s level, yet impres- 
sive voice, “ that so far, it hasn"t signified whether or not 
she eclipsed you. But how about when Felix Carew 
comes? You have in private expressed yourself to me in 
terms of unqualified admiration of him. What is there to 
insure us against young Oarew"s falling in love with the 
light-house girl instead of you, as we both most earnestly 
desire, if you continue to make a constant associate of 
her?"" 

Yalerie"s long, slender fingers clinched spasmodically, 
and involuntarily her glance swept to an ebony easel 
whereon stood the portrait of an eminently handsome man 
— a man with a proud, blonde face and a tawny, leonine 
beard, and eyes of deep, dark gray. 

“ 1 do admire him!"" she exclaimed through her shut 
teeth. “ 1 believe — if it were not such folly, madness — I 
believe that I love him, even now, before 1 have ever seen 
him!"" 

“ Then keep Trix Vorn away from him— on no con- 
sideration ask her to the yachting party given in his 
honor. "" 

“ But 1 have — fool that I was!"" cried Valerie, almost 
gnashing her teeth in her self-anger. ‘‘ I asked her this 
afternoon; I thought she would bring her guitar, and help 
entertain the guests. What madness! — what madness!"" 

A look of blank consternation flashed into* Paula"s coun- 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


31 


tenance, but further discussion of the subject was pre- 
vented by the appearance at this juncture of a third per- 
son — a tall, dark, elegant gentleman, with one of those 
interestiug countenances that romantic girls are apt to 
term as being full of mysteries. This was Armand St. 
Clair. 

Haughty, arrogant, passionate, he was a man who made, 
and wanted, few friends among, his own sex, and whose 
egotistical indifference and intolerance permitted him 
scarcely more among women, splendid and perfect as was 
his beauty. - 

“ My dear Armand, how do you find yourself this even- 
ing?^’ exclaimed Paula Dyncourt, as her friend drew near 
and sunk into a chair beside her. “ I was quite tempted 
to call you for dinner, but your man said that your orders 
were imperative not to be disturbed. 

“ 1 was almost broken up with an uncommonly bad 
headache,^’ explained St. Clair, with a degree of patience 
unusual with him, for his violence and impatience caused 
him to abhor verbiage even with the lady whom the world 
believed that he was at last to wed and “ settle down 
with ^Mnto a comfortable, commonplace married life. 

And yet, looking at him now, as he sat with his restless 
ebon eyes roaming aimlessly out of the window, his hand- 
some mouth twitching slightly with the restlessness of his 
violent nature, one would pronounce Armand St. Clair to 
be the last man to be connected with the hum-drum exist- 
ence of an ordinary'benedict. 

Though there had never been a scandal whispered in 
connection with his name — though he enjoyed no worse a 


33 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


reputation than that of being an ungenial, dictatorial, un- 
bending man, there was yet about him a peculiarly fierce 
and fickle appearance. 

“ Then you have not been out, Mr. St. Clair ob- 
served Valerie, presently, coming forward in her trailing, 
delicate robes. “ My maid, Therese, was positive that she 
saw you coming into the house about half an hour ago.'^^ 

“ 1 have nbt,’^ answered St. Clair, curtly. 

“ I have a surprise for you,^' observed Mrs. Dyncourt, 
moving her sleek, handsome head in the direction of a lit- 
tle malachite table whereon lay a letter. “ This evening's 
mail brought me a letter from your friend Carew. He 
tells me that, instead of waiting for the ‘ Clio,' as he at 
first expected to do, he has taken the Charleston steamer 
‘ City of Maxwell,' which will bring him into New York 
some days earlier. I should fancy the steamer must pass 
up our coast some time before morning. It is a most 
wretched night; 1 trust all will be well with her." 

"With one of his abrupt gestures, St. Clair had turned 
square around in his chair, his eyes gleaming with a 
strange look into Paula's. 

“ The ‘ City of Maxwell ' — to-night?" her epeated in a 
curious tone. 

Y^et at all times St. Clair's voice was strangely sweet 
and measured, even in his fiercest wrath. 

“ 1 knew you would be surprised," laughed Mrs. Dyn- 
court. 

Armand St. Clair seemed not to have heard her; he had 
risen and walked to the furthest window toward the ocean, 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS, 


33 


and was peering out into the night, an eager look on his 
delicate, cameo-like visage. 

“ I hear a minute gun,’^ he exclaimed, as at that mo- 
ment a distant report floated faintly into the brilliantly 
lighted, luxurious salon. ‘‘ A ship is in distress. It may 
be the ‘ Maxwell. ^ I am going over to the beach, if you 
ladies will excuse me.^^ 

Paula started, and rising from her chair trailed her silks 
and laces across the polished floor, with its Oriental rugs, 
to where St. Clair stood in the window. 

“ Armand, you will not go out to-night,^' she mur- 
mured, persuasively, and as she spoke she laid one jeweled 
hand upon the arm nearest her. 

But light as was the touch, St. Clair swiftly recoiled 
from it with a writhing motion. 

“ What is the matter — are you hurt?’^ cried Paula, in 
a startled tone. 

Under the silken, jetty mustache of St. Clair that soft, 
mystic smile, totally at variance with his nature, curved 
his straight lips. 

“ My dear Paula, how could you fancy such a thing? 
How could 1 be hurt?^^ he exclaimed, with a slight laugh, 
and yet a curious phase passed over her face — an odd, bit- 
ter flash like the cold glinting of an iceberg in the sun^s 
rays, as his glance for an instant swept to his arm. 

“Good-bye, I^m off!’^ he continued; “Tammis, your 
boatman, will ask nothing better than to cross the bay on 
a trip tc the beach in a storm like this. 

With which he vanished from the room, and, seeking the 

remoter portion of the great house, found Tammis, the 
2 


34 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


old seaman in charge of boating matters at The Breakers, 
and together they were soon making their way toward the 
bay, which they had to cross before gaining the beach. 
The Breakers, like all the other handsome residences along 
here, being located on the main-land. 


CHAPTER IV. 

Some two miles away from the light-house, one of those 
weird, wild scenes with which our coast is familiar, was in 
progress. 

Here worked the gallant crew of Life Saving Station No. 
6od bless and save the brave surfmen of our coun- 
try! 

Without the ecla{ and the honored recognition accorded 
warriors; without the distinction and the reward of the 
navy^s patronage, but enduring triple the dangers and ex- 
posures of both professipns, they go their quiet, unobtru- 
sive way afar off on the coasts, leading a life of hardship 
and peril, carrying their lives in their hands, and in the 
end generally swept away to find an unhonored grave in 
the ocean’s bed, with no boom of musketry or black- 
draped ensign to remind the world of their martyred hero- 
ism. 

Even as we write, the widows of three brave seamen 
whose lives went out in the life-saving service near Barne- 
gat, mourn over the new-made graves of their- gallant lost 
ones. 

To the spot on the beach opposite to that point in the 
ocean where the stranded vessel groaned in her death- 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


35 


throes, the crew to which we have drawn special attention 
had wheeled down the truck containing their equipments 
for their dangerous duty. 

As the little figure trudging bravely through the night 
to ascertain the extent of the disaster — Trix — gained the 
scene of action, a thrilling spectacle met her view, and yet 
it was one with which she was not unfamiliar. 

Far out among the breakers flashed the lights of the 
foundered steamer, and between it and the shore hissed 
and thundered the great, cruel, storm-lashed sea, with i(s 
mountainous waves and deep, dark, seething pits. 

Low down upon the beach, lighted up by the flickering, 
lurid glow of the torches, worked the handful of hardy, 
daring men with whom rested the awful responsibility of 
rescuing from the very jaws of death those helpless lives 
far out upon the .waves. 

“ What is she, captain 

As the trembling words reached the captain^s ear, whei’e 
he stood in the midst of his busy crew, working for the 
most part silently, but with swift hands and nerves of 
steel, and grim, stern visages, the oftlcer turned abruptly 
to see a little pale, pinched face lifted wofully to his in the 
fugitive crimson glare of th^ lights. 

“You, child he exclaimed. 

He was the life-long friend of Brian Vorn, and the de- 
voted ally and admirer of his “ first mate.'’^ 

“ Oh, captain, something dreadful has happened; but 
you can’t stop to hear it now!” gasped Trix, with a hys- 
terical catch of her hurrying breath. 

“No, child, not now,” returned the captain, almost 


36 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


sadly, as his grim eye traveled out to those shifting lights 
on the ocean. 

Then recalling the girTs inquiry: 

“ Her signals tell us that she is a southern steamer — 
well filled with passengers, he continued. 

“ Is the life-boat out?” inquired Trix, tremulously. 

“ No boat could stand such a sea as this; we must take 
to the life-car,'" replied the officer, as he turned away to 
his crew. 

Silently, with clinched hands, and her very soul in her 
burning eyes, Trix watched the delicate, scientific opera- 
tion of putting in action those means supplied by the gov- 
ernment for the rescue of the victims of shipwreck. 

First came the slender shot-line, by means of a rocket 
fired out across the stranded steamer. 

To the shot-line the crew on shore had attached a 
heavier or “ hand-line," which was drawn on board by 
means of the first, and to which was attached a block of 
wood bearing instructions printed in different languages as 
how next to proceed. , 

Acting at once upon a portion of these instructions, the 
crew on board made fast the pulley which accompanied the 
block and then showed the givfen ligh^ to indicate that that 
portion of the work was finished. 

Next came the main rope or hawser, with another block 
directing the sailors to make it fast to the highest, 
strongest point of the vessel. This accomplished, the sig- 
nal light was again shown. After that all the labor and 
strain, all the herculean yet scientific maneuvers devolved 
with the crew on shore. 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOLSE LASS. 


37 


The life-car is formed of rubber and metal, shaped like 
a huge unopened pea-pod, with the “ man-hole "" in the 
top. Through this the passenger enters, alter which it is 
securely closed and fastened.} 

; This -vessel or vehicle — whichever you might term it — 
the surfmeii attached to the hawser, on which it was hauled 
out to the steamer by means of the pulley and hand-line, 
the ends of which latter the crew on shore had retained. 

Then followed the work of drawing the passengers on 
shore. 

As the first car full came'^in sight, gliding down the 
hawser, over the black, yawning vortex beneath, that sent 
up its great arms after the prey that was escaping it, Trix 
drew nearer in irrepressible agitation. 

Who were these people whose would-be destroyer had 
wrought his demon’s work before her shrinking eyes?, 

As the life-car reached the beach eager hands received ~ 
it, unloosed the “ man-hole,” and helped forth the pas- 
sengers. 

They were all women, save one — a tall, superbly formed 
man of perhaps thirty, who, it transpired, had been struck 
by a spar in the excitement of the foundering while he had 
been passing among the terrified passengers endeavoring 
to calm their agitation. 

Contrary to the rules, which ordain that all women and 
children shall be the first rescued, this man had been hud- 
dled. into the car by the captain in a state of unconscious- 
ness, that his seemingly dangerous condition might the 
sooner receive attention. 

Now as the surfmen lifted him out and laid him on the 


38 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


beach Trix bent over the long, motionless form in speech- 
less horror. 

' How magnificent were those limbs that seemed more 
fitted for the ai’ena of the gladiator than the fine, fashion- 
able raiment in which they were attired! How handsome 
that haughty, clear-cut, blonde face with the wavy, golden 
beard parted upon the chin and sweeping back like a sea 
of gold ! 

As if mesmerized, Trix bent lower in the weird gleam 
of the torches, her eyes riveted upon the unconscious man 
before her. 

At that instant a touch fell upon the girTs shoulder. 
She started, straightened herself, looked up, and then with 
a suppressed throbbing cry, she sunk back until she 
crouched upon the sands, her eyes dilating in great fear 
and horror. 

CHAPTER V. 

“ Upoh my word, you are not very complimentary, 
young lady. What in the fiend’s name is there in my ap- 
pearance to so completely demoralize you?” 

As the soft, yet bitterly exasperated voice fell upon 
Trix’s ear, she rose slowly from where she had sunk down 
beside the unconscious man, and with a shrinking, half- 
fearful gaze stared up at the individual who had just 
joined her. 

He was a tall, supple-figured man, litl^e as a leopard, 
with a handsome, closely cropped head, black as a raven’s 
wing, and a long silken mustache of the same uncom- 
promising jettiness. 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


39 


As Trix’s fixed, wondering regard covered him, a be- 
wildered, incredulous look slowly stamped the girl’s pale 
countenance, and for a moment she stood like one in a 
nightmare. 

Then she seemed to rouse herself with a violent efiort. 

** I — I beg your pardon,” she stammered, raising one 
little trembling hand to her forehead, as though to clear a 
mist from her senses, “ but before I saw your face — when 
1 only saw your figure in the dim light — I — I — thought 
you were some one else — that dreadful monster — ” 

Trix broke off, still trembling under that overpowering 
agitation aroused by her companion’s vague, indefinable 
similarity to that human fiend with whom she had spent 
those horrible moments in the light-house tower. 

“You are not he — not at all — and yet your figure, your 
eyes, your voice — they — they seem horribly like his!” 
murmured the girl, almost incoherently. 

A cold, lingering smile, that made Trix shudder afresh 
as though a nerve had been touched by cold steel, swept 
the stranger’s thin, classic lips. 

“Perhaps my name may facilitate you in fixing my 
identity,” he observed, in his mellow voice of inimitable 
mockery. “I am Armand St. Clair, now stopping with 
Mrs. Paula Dyncourt at The Breakers.” 

Trix’s lips parted to emit a low, inarticulate sound of 
mortification and despair, while her pale 'face flushed a 
quick, rich red. 

Armand St. Clair, whom Valerie had lauded to the skies 
for the past few days — the rich and elegant society man 
whom the world cringed to, even while it hated him — and 


40 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


she had been compariDg him to his very face to a villain 
of the deepest dye — a midnight assassin! 

“ You little fool, you dolt, you ass!’^ she hissed to her- 
self, for Trix's fury was quite as often directed against 
herself as other people. “ May be after many more such 
blunders as you are always making, you’ll gain a little 
sense! I wish he’d pick you up and fling you into the 
sea!” 

And yet — and yet — how amazingly like the other this 
wealthy gentleman was! The very smile with which his 
dusky eyes were now regarding her, brought back to her 
the roughly clad, ruddy-haired man who had wrought the 
dire disaster now surrounding them. 

“ I am very sorry, sir. I — 1 beg your pardon,” mur- 
mured poor Trix, burying her head in that abandonment 
of shame that only her impulsive, vehement temperament 
could experience. 

“ I would not have said such a thing to a friend of the 
Dyncourts, if I had known, for the world! Valerie is my 
dearest friend.” 

It was now Mr. St. Clair’s turn to start, and a slight 
fold appeared between his straight, delicate brows. Only 
that it would appear too ridiculous, one would be almost 
tempted to say that he stared at that little, abased head in 
something strongly akin to consternation. 

“ 1 had no idea — 1 have never heard them mention you 
at The Breakers!” he exclaimed, in a quickened tone. 

“Vhy, you don’t yet know me. You never saw me 
before. How can you tell?” said Trix, in overwhelming 
amazement. 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


41 


Mr. Sfc. Clair turned from her in some confusion. 
“True enough/^ he muttered; “but we are wasting 
time. To my sorrow, 1 recognize this fine fellow stretched 
here to be my friend, Felix Carew. He must be got at 
once to The Breakers. 

Would wonders never cease? This beautiful blonde 
man lying at her feet, in all his unconsciousness like a 
sun-god, was Felix Carew, the expected honored guest 
whom Valerie had extolled even beyond Armand Sfc. Clair 
— with whom, indeed, Trix shrewdly conjectured, Val was 
more than half in love already, from studying his picture 
which her aunt Paula^s friend had brought with him. 
How strangely the three had been thrown together. At 
that moment Carew amazed both by suddenly moving his 
splendid limbs with a vigor that was suggestive of any- 
thing but a dying man, and opened his closed eyes. 

With a cry of joy, Trix flung herself upon her knees be- 
side him, and bending over, peered into his face. 

“ He is not dead — he is coming around!’^ she exclaimed, 
in her clear, vibrating voice, as she seized one of his 
limp hands and held it close in hers, in her childish de- 
light. 

Broken up as was Carew’s condition, there was yet suffi- 
cient lifb remaining in him to respond with considerable 
pressure to the touclr of those five little berry-brown fin- 
gers. as with liveliest interest his dark-gray, half-passion- 
ate eyes stared up into the face bending over him. 

“You little beauty — who are you9” he exclaimed. 
Then he staggered dizzily to his feet, as he rioted the 
weird, graphic scene surrounding him— the long, dreary 


42 THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 

beach, the flickering torches, the sobbing women hud- 
dled in a mass together, the busy, sturdy surfmen— 
the wondering look in his countenance deepened into one 
of utter bewilderment. 

“ What the deuce— where am 1?"" he ejaculated. Then 
suddenly recollection returned to him. “ Oh, I remem- 
ber!'^ he exclaimed, sharply. “ The steamer— she struck 
the shoals!" and he half started toward the busy scene of 
action from which they were but a short distance re- 
moved. 

JSIot until then did Armand St. Clair step forward be- 
fore his friend, and his hand fell upon his shoulder. , 

“ Felix, old fellow, take it easy," he said, and his soft, 
flexible voice held a quality of sincerity that never per- 
meated it save when addressing Carew, who was the one 
being on earth that came nearest being his friend. 

“ St. Clair," exclaimed Carew, in the profoundest 
amazement, “ has there been wizard's work here?" 

“ The steamer struck off The Breakers, the home of my 
friend Mrs. Dyncourt, whom you are to stop with. I 
heard the guns and came across the bay to' see what was 
up," explained St. Clair. “ But how is it 1 find you cut 
up like this?" he continued. 

“ Everything was topsy-turvy on board when we struck. 
I was trying to infuse a little decency into those wretched 
beggars of men, who were like a pack of frightened sheep, 
when something fetched me a rap alongside of my head 
that leveled me. It must have been a spar. " Carew had 
to raise his voice to be heard above the rising tempest. 

Trix, standing a step away, mute but alert and atten- 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 43 

tive, in the driving wind and rain, was eying the two men 
standing side by side with an unusually fixed stare. 

How St. Clair, dark and beautiful as he undeniably was, 
suffered by comparison with the other! How positively 
sinister grew his countenance beside the proud, blonde, 
nonchalant visage of Felix Carew! 

“ Come on; let us lend a hand. What the deuce did 
the captain mean by packing me off here ashore the first 
one,’^ he added, impatiently, as he again started toward 
the land-crew. 

Again St Clair stopped him, sincere solicitude for the 
moment chasing away the cold, cynical expression of his 
countenance. 

“ Your head must be attended to. Let me look at it 
I am a good surgeon, he said. 

“ Whatever made him smile and look at me like that?’^ 
thought Trix at this juncture, with a sensation as of ice- 
water being poured down her spine. “ Dear — dear; but 
there are moments when he does remind me just awfully 
of that other one. Oh! there you go again, Trix Vorn, 
you little fool !^^ and Trix suddenly pulled herself up as 
she recalled the high standing of the 'gentleman whom she 
was comparing to a fiend incarnate. 

“ It is a mere scratch, protested Carew. 

“ A ‘ mere scratch ^ would never fell Harvard's best 
athlete like that. Hold over here — let me examine it.^^ 

Thus adjured, Carew reluctantly thrust his particularly 
handsome cranium under the high-bred, aquiline nose of 
his friend, and the result of that inspection was that St. 


44 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


Clair declared that the wound must be attended to 
once, and began packing Felix off to The Breakers. 

“ They have a capital old sea-dog — Tammis— who will 
take you over the bay and return for me,^^ continued Ar- 
mand. “ The ladies will be only too glad to receive you, 
and I will remain liere until we make sure that all are 
saved, when 1 will join you. 

But this Oarew refused to do, a stubborn look beginning 
to come into his eagle-like countenance which but rendered 
it the more attractive to Trix’s fascinated eyes. 

“ If there is need of you there is need of me. I will not 
budge from the beach until you do!^^ he declared. 

At that moment a second car full from the steamer was 
beached, and with an abrupt gesture St. Clair transferred 
his attention to the unloading of its occupants. 

They consisted of women and children. One of the 
former, like Carew, was borne helpless upon the sands. 

Unlike Felix, she was not unconscious, but burning up 
with fever and muttering in delirium. 

Her fellow-passengers vouched the information that she 
had been suddenly taken ill at the commencement of the 
trip and had continued to get worse until delirium had set 
in that evening. 

She had np friends on board, and nothing was known of 
her except that she had taken passage for New York. 

As the long, slender form was wrapped in a blanket and 
laid upon the beach while hasty arrangements were being 
made to transfer her to the life-saving station, which the 
government provides with medicines and means of resusci- 
tation adapted to every case, Trix drew near the sick 


4 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


45 


womau^ whose lips were constantly moving in incoherent 
mutterings. 

All the girhs tender heart was in her eyes, as she bent 
over the poor, lonely one, ill, without a friend to minister 
to her wants, and looked down into her fever-flushed vis- 
age. 

She appeared to be a woman not yet forty years of age, 
with a countenance beautiful despite the ravages of dis- 
ease, and a certain something that in that instant some 
subtle power seemed to whisper to the girFs soul, teeming 
with its pity and tenderness, was that bitterest of all tort- 
ure — remorse! 

“Poor woman, poor woman! How sad to be ill and 
cast away, without one loving heart near!^’ murmured 
Trix, her large, brilliant eyes filliug with the tears that 
were ever near the surface, little termagant that she was 
generally pronounced to be. 

Then she turned abruptly, to see that Mr. St. Clair bad 
followed her example, and, with a peculiarly fixed regard, 
was studying the sick woman's countenance. 

“ She is a very sick woman — very sick indeed. What 
with the exposure and the excitement of being moved, I 
should say that she can not possibly live until morning,'' 
he exclaimed, in a curiously repressed voice. 

Trix's eyes, as they rested on him, filled with flaming 
indignation.' There was not the scantest pity in his tone 
for this poor, friendless stranger; indeed, if it had not 
seemed so utterly preposterous, she would have declared 
that it contained a species of satanic exultation. 


40 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


In the next moment St. Clair turned to Carew, who 
was conversing with one of the crew. 

“ There is every prospect of every soul on board being 
saved. We can do no good here/^ he said, in a voice 
whose lightness and timbre made sweetest melody. “ Come, 
for the sake of that stubborn head of yours, I will take 
you to The Breakers. 

Together the two men turned, and without once glanc- 
ing at the little rubber-clad figure bending over the suffer- 
ing women like a pitying angel, walked away arm in arm 
toward the bay, old Tammis following. 

As they went, Trix’s eyes followed them half wistfully, 
despite her great interest in the woman at her feet. 

For the first time in her life she was struck by the 
difference between her and Valerie’s station. How nice it 
must be to be clad in elegant dresses, and receive such 
guests as Felix Carew. 

Standing there in the thick sheets of spray and rain, 
with the salt winds sweeping in from the sea, and half 
carrying her away, she knew how the elegant salons of 
The Breakers looked. 

She pictured it all— the bare polished old floors, the 
Turkish rugs, the Oriental hangings, the rare paintings, 
the costly bric-a-brac, the soft, tinted lights from the in- 
numerable wax-tapers, and last of all, the pretty, grace- 
ful, richly clad women that would come forward to greet 
the two men now making their way to them in the teeth 
of the tempest. 

How doubly inviting and enchanting would all appear to 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


47 


them by contrast with the horrible roar and din out here 
in the warring elements. 

A strange, dull pang shot into Trix^s heart; what was 
it, that nev7, empty ache? Was it jealousy of Valerie^ s 
advantages — was it envy of her privilege of enjoying 
Felixes Carew^s society?- 


CHAPTER VI. 

Bright and fair, in that sunny mockery, that somehow 
in Nature always seems to succeed her fiercest wrath and 
bitterest destruction, the morning dawned, after the strik- 
ing of the southern steamer upon the shoals. 

Nine o^cloqk found Trix in her own particular little 
skifi, on her way across the bay to make an early call at 
The Breakers. 

As she gained the shore, beached her boat, and ran with 
swift feet toward the beautiful villa basking in the fresh, 
dewy light, her little figure seemed instinct with excite- 
ment and importance. 

With the true instinct of friendship, she was hastening 
to Valerie to confide to her the startling events of the pre- 
ceding night. 

As she scurried, like a rabbit, into the spacious grounds 
of The Breakers, she was suddenly arrested by a voice that 
for an instant sent the treacherous color galloping out of 
her rounded cheeks, as she glanced about her with 
startled, panic-stricken eyes. 

“ Good-morning, Miss Vorn; one would hardly look for 
you out so early after the exciting evening you must have 


48 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


passed,” it said, and for the first time Trix saw standing 
directly in her path the tall, slim form and delicate, in- 
scrutable face of Armand St. Clair. 

Something in the aghast, half-shrinking visage lifted to 
his brought that fine, mysterious smile to the gentlemaur^s 
Grecian lips. 

“ I wish I did not always occasion you such a shock. 
Miss Trix,^^ he observed, in a sort of cold banter. 

“ It— it — it is so absurd of me,^^ stammered Trix, 
shamefacedly, “ but somehow, at first I always do think of 
that other.” 

“ My prototype? Who may he be?” inquired those 
lazily amused tones. 

Trix shuddered even there in the warm, bright morn- 
ing. If she lived in his society for a century, she told her- 
self, she could never feel at ease with this cynical, icy 
man, whose very iciness, persistently reminded her of the 
thin crust over a crater, and who bore that inde- 
finable yet most appalling resemblance to that monster 
that figured in her experience of the previous evening. 

“ Well, if you decline to be communicative, 1 wonT in- 
sist,^’ observed St. Clair, one brown hand idly pulling the 
silken ends of his mustache. “ How about the passengers 
— they were all rescued, 1 trust?” ^ 

“ Every one!” cried Trix, struggling out of the clutch 
of that chill silence that seemed to possess her under this 
man^s influence. “ How could it be otherwise, with our 
brave coast-guard ever at the call of the castaways?” 

“ Ah, yes; to be sure,” observed St. Clair, with a slight 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


49 


sneer. “ And the poor ill creature, in whom you seemed 
to be so greatly interested — what became of her?"^ 

“ I had her taken to the light-house, where I could at- 
tend to her. Poor soul! I could not allow her to be 
shipped to New York like a dumb animal, there to be 
sent to the hospital, answered Trix, softly. 

St. Clair was regarding her curiously, a not altogether 
amiable expression in his southern visage. 

“ She is a stranger to you, is she not?^^ he inquired, 
somewhat quickly. 

“ An entire stranger. So much the more do I owe her 
kindness,’^ answered Trix. briefly. 

“Well, she will not trouble you long, 1 fancy, ob- 
served her companion, in a curious tone. 

“Oh, my! 1 hope will hot die,^^ exclaimed Trix’s 
low, passionate tones. “ 1 canT tell you how sorry for her 
— how drawn toward her — I feel. Guilda — that^s our 
housekeeper — is a capital doctress, and she has taken her 
in charge, and we have sent down to Plankton for the 
doctor. lie will surely be here by afternoon; and, if it is 
possible to raise the poor woman, we will.^^ 

This simple, sympathetic narrative seemed to possess 
little interest for St. Clair. His face was turned away to- 
ward the distant light-house, and a peculiar look was in 
his eyes. ^ 

And jet he propounded still another question: 

“ She is still delirious?’^ 

“ Oh, utterly, poor, poor soul! She talks constantly. 
Do you know, 1 have a strange idea — 


50 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOLSE LASS. 


As the words broke suddenly from Trix's scarlet lips 
St Clair seemed with reluctance to obey a mesmeric influ- 
ence, and looked down into her uplifted, unconscious face, 
whose beauty seemed to possess a sorceress’s power, with an 
almost antagonistic gleam in his deep, dark eyes; and yet 
his breath was coming a trifle more quickly, so complete, 
so resistless was that power that this small, exquisite, un- 
respon^le creature exercised over all men. 

“ Well?” he said, in that slow, unwavering voice. 

“ I believe that the poor creature has at one time or an- 
other committed some great crime,” said Trix, with con- 
viction. 

St. Clair turned square around upon her. Full a min- 
ute passed before he spoke, then his voice was short, crisp, 
and full of stern power that, until that instant, had 
seemed impossible to its liquid timbre. 

“ Why?” 

“ Well, because she mutters constantly about atoning,” 
replied Trix, lowering her voice unconsciously, and invol- 
untarily glancing across the bay to the high, white walls 
wherein lay the strange sick woman. “ She says other 
things, but we can’t understand them; we can’t make out 
anything at all except that one word, ‘atone.’ - It must 
be that she has committed some great sin that has re- 
turned to torture her in her delirium.” 

Armand St. Clair was cutting with what would seem to 
be unnecessary cruelty at the blushing blossoms of the 
rhododendrons, by which he had chanced to come to a 
stand-still. 

At last he lifted his hat and rather abruptly walked 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


51 


away, and Trix, glad in spite of herself to be released, 
sped on to the mansion. 

Here in the morning parlor, through one of whose win- 
dows she flung herself, she met the ladies of the house. 

- Too glad to see them herself, too full of great news to 
notice the want of vvarmth in their greeting, she launched 
forth into a breathless account of her adventure in the 
tower and its consequences, to which her companions 
could but listen with irrepressible interest. 

“ Well,’^ commented Valerie, when she had finished, 
“ one thing is certain: 1 owe the fellow something for re- 
moving that detestable brute from the land of the living. 
What you could ever see in the savage, ugly creature I 
could never conjecture.^’ 

‘‘ Oh, Val, you cruel, cruel thing!” cried Trix, hotly. 
“ My dear, dear Lion! I should have cried for a mouth if 
that fiend’s poison had killed him. But 1 am thankful to 
say that it did not. He was very ill all night, but has 
almost recovered this morning.” 

“ You have quite a houseful of invalids,” sneered Vale- 
rie. 

“And you — you also have an invalid, have you not, 
Val?” inquired Trix, quickly recovering her equilibrium, 
and looking up with beaming, eager eyes from where she 
crouched upon an Eastern rug like some" beautiful little 
wild cub of .the. jungle. 

Valerie frowned, and Paula cast her one swift, signifi- 
cant glance. Already the two Jadies had been treated to a 
spirited account from Carew’s lips of the dark face with 
its Oriental splendor that had looked into his when he first 


52 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


returned to consciousness, and they knew that it could be 
no other than Trix. 

Therefore it' will be readily understood that their senti- 
ments for her this morning were not of the warmest. 

Indeed, looking into that dusky, tanned visage, lifted in 
its charming eagerness to hers, Valerie felt such a flame of 
hatred sweep into her heart as caused her to marvel how 
she could ever have tolerated Trix^s society in the past, 
much less sought it, as she had certainly done. 

“ Mr. Carew you mean?’^ she replied, carelessly. “ Yes, 
but he can scarcely be termed an invalid. John — one 
of the footmen — “ tells us that he declares he is quite re- 
covered this morning, only his head being a little sore. 
He is not about yet. 

“ Ah, then he will be all right for our yachting party, 
exclaimed Trix, with an unconscious glad light suffusing 
her tell-tale face. 

Valerie secretly gnashed her teeth. Why had she been 
such a fool as to ask this detestable creature, with her odd, 
odalisque loveliness? 

Why had she never before seen how horribly dangerous it 
was to throw her with her guests, and how her own fair 
prettiness paled in contrast with her glowing, dark splen- 
dor? 

And now, upstairs in the elegant chamber assigned him, 
lay a man whose chief conversation in the one hour she 
had seen him, was of Trix— the man that some sure subtle 
instinct told Valerie was the one being “ on earth for 
her,’^ and she — Valerie — must in some way keep the two 
apart. 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


53 


Miss Dyncourfc glanced at her aunt. That lady was 
staring out of the window with a particularly hard, cold 
countenance, yet a countenance that told her as plainly as 
words that the fair widow considered it little short of mad- 
ness to permit Trix to go upon this yachting excursion. 

Val turned desperately to her friend; some lingering 
sense of decency forbade her actually withdrawing the 
invitation; and yet — ^nd yet — Felix Carew and Trix Vorn 
must be kept apart. 

“ Trix,^^ she said, her cool, cultured voice a trifle quick- 
ened, “ this is to be quite a diflerent affair from those that 
you have hitherto been on. Some of the best people in 
New York society will attend it."’"’ 

“ How splendid — how charming gasped Trix, clasp- 
ing her hands, and sitting up on the rich-hued rug sultan 
fashion. 

Suddenly Valerie sprung up and intwined her tall, slen- 
der form between her friend and the long, low open win- 
dow. 

But too late. 

Felix Carew, of whom she had suddenly caught a 
glimpse strolling down the veranda, had seen that little 
seductive figure seated in state upon the rug, and had 
come to anchor in front of the window, looking, in his 
cool, white flannel morning suit like Apollo himself. 

One swift furtive glance and Valerie^s teeth crushed 
savagely into her thin uhder-lip, as she perceived the 
startled, half- wondering admiration of those usually half- 
lazy, cool-gray eyes of Carew that were fixed upon Trix. 

In that moment the last spark of the old friendship died 


54 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS, 


in Valerie’s breast, and a hatred, rank, bitter, even mur- 
derous, such as only such cold, selfish natures as hers can 
experience, was kindled in its place — a hatred that was 
destined to bear bitter fruit in the future, now shrouded in 
its mystery and uncertainty. 

Carew stood for a moment longet looking into the room, • 
naturally expecting to be invited to enter, then turned, and 
throwing away his cigar, walked a step away, and leaned 
his magnificent figure against one of the Ionic columns of 
the veranda without Trix having discovered his proximity. 

His back was turned toward the parlor, but a raised 
voice could easily reach his ears. 

“ Trix,” said Valerie, in an abrupt under-tone, “ shall 
you know how to conduct yourself among those gay society 
people? Ain’t you afraid you shall appear a little rustic, 
and mortify yourself and me too?” 

, By this time it had dawned upon the small young lady 
crouching upon the floor that “ Val was in a temper.” 

And yet, even after this very pointed observation of 
Valerie, it never occurred to Trix that she was not wanted 
on the yachting excursion. 

Unsuspicious and confiding, she yet had a quick and 
even painfully sensitive organization; but in the present 
instance she was prevented from realizing the true state of 
the case by her entire confidence in Valerie’s friendship. 

They had had too many tilts in their lives. Trix her- 
self said too many hard words, when in a passion, that she 
never meant — gave too many thrusts that she bitterly re- 
pented of — to fancy for a moment that anything but a 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


55 


momentary ruffling of tem23er was responsible for Valerie's 
observation. 

She only straightened herself a little, and her large eyes, 
now positively dazzling in their mischievous glitter, rested 
laughingly upon Valerie's disturbed visage. 

“ I don't think there's much danger if you get through 
all right, Val," she answered, with her merriest laugh that 
yet always had a slightly imperious ring. 

For debonair, insouciant, thorough child of Nature 
though she was, Trix's temperament held an under-cur- 
rent of hauteur and proud self-esteem that infused in her 
at all times a tinge of royalty such as one might expect in 
a sunny-tempered, gracious young sovereign dealing with 
her court. 

“ You know," continued this small bohemian, “ 1 have 
knocked about pretty much all over the world, been 
thrown with nice people of every country, and have you 
forgot how Monsieur De Foi assured us that that afforded 
one a certain verve and finish that could in no other way 
be acquired?" 

■ Valerie had not forgotten; even before Trix's roguish 
yet truthful words had been uttered, she had remembered 
the observation of her French master of deportment and 
etiquette, his enthusiastic admiration of Trix's careless 
grace and self-possession, which, with the privileged can- 
dor of a tutor, he had assured Valerie she could never pos- 
^sess with all his coaching. 

The realization of this truth now stung the girl to mad- 
ness; with her pale-blue eyes gleaming like an adder's. 


56 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


and her face flushed crimson, she bent over the smiling, 
impish Trix. 

“ How dare you — how dare you!^^ she hissed, furiously. 
“You little low-bred wretch! I will get even with you 
before we die. 

For a moment, almost bewildered by the terrible light 
in Valerie’s eyes, Trix shrunk back, wondering vaguely if 
Val had lost her senses. 

For this that lived in her glance was something that had 
never lived in it before, with all their tilts,’ something that 
she had never seen in any one’s eyes, save the eyes of the 
man up in the tower, when she had buried her little sharp 
teeth in his arm. It was a look of murder. 

And now, too, standing above her, was Paula Dyncourt, 
her face equally as strange and forbidding as her niece’s, 
her angry glance riveted upon the astounded Trix. 

“ Hold your insolent little tongue,” uttered the lady, in 
a carefully suppressed tone, yet one burning up with fury. 

“You, a pauper and a foundling, living on the bounty 
of an old cripple working for his living — a vulgar old 
ignoramus whose every other word is an oath — how dare 
you so presume with us, who are of the blue blood of 
America!” 

Trix never heard the epithets applied to herself; it was 
the abuse of her beloved uncle that was written before her 
eyes in a fiery scroll, that thundered in her ears like can- 
non-roar. 

With flashing eyes and her face literally aflame with 
passion, she sprung to her feet, and trembling with rage, 
confronted old Brian Vorn’s traducer. 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


57 


“ You wicked, cruel, lying woman. 1 — 1 — wish 1 could 
fling you into the sea,’"’ she hissed. “You are the first 
being that I ever heard utter a word against my dear, dar- 
ling old uncle. You — you,’^ she continued, with deepen- 
ing fury, her flashing eyes dwelling in superb contempt 
upon the two startled women — “ you who live on the 
money wrested from the widow and the orphan. Vale- 
rie’s late father, once president of a savings-bank, had re- 
tired on a fat pocket filled by the bankrupt law. “ You to 
breathe one word against honest Brian Yorn! Know that 
I would rather bear his name, humble though it is, than 
any blue-blooded title cursed by the dying breath of the 
hungry and the homeless!’^ 

It was impossible for Carew not to hear — ^impossible for 
him not to involuntarily wheel about and glance with 
startled interest into the room where stood that little fig- 
ure instinct with righteous indignation. 

As his glance lingered upon Trix’s fiery, scornful face^ 
an irrepressible admiration warmed his usually indifferent, 
cool eyes. And yet, not knowing the true state of the 
case, it was impossible for his sympathies to be wholly en- 
listed in her favor. 

“Great Heaven! what a little beauty— what a little 
termagant!’^ he thought, in his amused soul. 

To make matters worse for the ladies, a door in the 
rear of the room opened at this instant, and St. Clair 
entered. 

As lie took in the scene with one comprehensive glance, 
a slow, curious smile curled itself about his satirical lips, 
and his eyes became fixed on the gleaming face of Trix, 


58 


THE LITTLE LlGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


who, in her rage, was utterly unaware of either gentle- 
man’s proximity. 

There was a moment’s silence, then again that burning 
resentment aroused by the insult hurled at her loved one, 
swept forth in the girl’s throbbing, fiery voice. 

“ Blue blood, indeed!” cried this terrible child, with a 
low, taunting laugh. “ Very blue — particularly blue — in 
your nose, Mrs. Dyncourt.” 

One moment of pallid inactivity on the gentlemen’s 
part, then each turned and beat a masterly retreat. 

But St. Clair did' not disappear so quickly but that the 
object of this ridiculous gibe saw his significant biting of his 
under-lip to keep from smiling in her face. 

For one moment after they were left alone, Paula Dyn- 
court stood as if turned to marble — even the objectionable 
tinge referred to, and which hinted of a possible secret 
weakness, seemed to disappear under her terrible passion. 

Then slowly she raised one arm and pointed to the win- 
dow. 

“Go!” she said, in a voice grown hoarse with rage and 
mortification. “ But before you leave I will cofide to you 
something of which you have too long been in ignorance,” 

She paused as if to gather full force for her venomous 
blow, then slowly, insidiously her voice broke the hush: 

“ You say that you would prefer Brian Vorn’s name to 
ours! Understand that even his, worthless and unknown 
as it is, you have no right to. Understand that you have 
no name — that you are a pauper, a foundling cast up by 
the sea!” 

Under those words, that could be only horrible and ap- 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


59 


palling to her, the color drained out of Trix^s face, and 
her eyes, holding a wild, startled look, stared from one to 
the other of her heartless companions. 

No merciful doubt of Paula’s words assailed her. There 
was a bitter wrath in the widow’s angry countenance that 
sent conviction to Trix’s turbulent yet half-paralyzed soul. 

For a moment the poor girl stood as if rooted to the 
spot; then a long, convulsive shudder swept her lithe 
limbs, and turning, she sprung through the window, fled 
down the avenue and away toward the bay. 


CHAPTEK VII. 

Still white with fury, Paula Dyncourt turned to Vale- 
rie as the passionate, tempestuous child, whom they had 
hounded almost to death, sped away from them. 

The eyes of both met in spiteful exultation of their cruel 
work. 

“ I have put a flea in her ear that will last for to-day, I 
fancy,” ejaculated the elder, her voice still hoarse with 
angry ^excitement. “ And it is well. Did you see how 
Carew’s glaiice lingered upon the creature as she lolled 
there upon the floor? I tell you he is more than half in- 
fatuated with her already.” 

“ 1 know— -1 saw it,” muttered Valerie, through her 
teeth. 

“ For some reason Mr. St. Clair, I am thankful to see, 
seems to absolutely hate her,” proceeded Paula, in a voice 
suddenly filling with exultation. “ I feared it might be 
so different; and yet even now I am not at ease. If he 


60 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


were thrown much with the little wretch there is no tell- 
ing how his sentiments might change.''^ 

“ Though we ina}^ have checked her in -coming to the 
house, that does not by any means insure'Eelix and Ar- 
mand from meeting her,^^ Valerie said, in a suppressed 
voice. “ They will, doubtless, be over at the beach every 
day. The yacht has been placed at their disposal, and in 
thus constantly coming and going they will, beyond all 
doubt, run across Trix, and be thrown continually in her 
society if they desire. ^ ’ 

“ The same idea has occurred to me,^^ returned Mrs. 
Dyncourt, a heavy frown upon her still, smooth brow. 

“I think we have made a mistake, Valerie, in giving 
way to our temper before the girl. It is showing our dis- 
like too soon. If it is not too late, we must rectify the 
blunder. For the present, the girl had better be allowed 
to come to the house as usual. ‘ Of two evils choose the 
lesser;’ and" it would be better to have her under our eye 
than for her to be thrown with our friends alone over on 
the beach.” 

Valerie, who had been walking aimlessly about the 
spacious room like some restless, penned animal, now 
came and stood before her aunt. The girl’s eyes were 
glittering with an evil fire. Her face was menacing in its 
great darkness. 

“ Tante l^’ she said, in a voice that at once fixed that 
lady’s attention. “ There might as well be plain speaking 
between us. Moreover, you already know my secret. Be- 
fore ever 1 saw him, 1 loved Felix Carew from his pictured 
face. Since 1 have seen him, brief as is the time, that love 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOESE LASS. 


61 


has grown into idolatry, madness. And yet I know that 
it would in turn take very little to precipitate him in love 
with Trix Yorn. Tante, I wish — heaven and earth! how 
I wish —that that strange man, whoever he was, had flung 
her from the tower last night, for then she would have 
been forever removed from my path!^’ 

As the low words hissed through the speaker's tightly 
clinched teeth, Paula Pyncourt shuddered slightly; yet so 
desperate also was the jealousy of her nature that she en- 
tirely sympathized with the ferocious spirit they breathed. 

With her eyes gleaming with their baleful fever fires, 
and her* lips grown livid with passion, the agitated girl 
continued: 

“I never knew what hatred was before; but now — 
* she paused, and her hands clinched with a spasmodic vio- 
lence — “ 1 am reminded now of an incident that occurred 
in my childhood; I had somehow escaped my nurse and 
ran up to the attic one day where 1 was rummaging among 
the old stuff stowed away there; I came upon a trunk full 
of old books, among them ancient works of heraldry. 
Among these was a copy of our family tree, coat of arms, 
etc., and in one place in this collection was printed in old- 
fashioned type this sentence: ‘Jealous as pagans, and 
blood-thirsty as savages T 

Mrs. Dyncourt started, and a strange look flashed 
athwart her countenance as she muttered involuntarily: 

“ It is the old legend that years before the Eevolution- 
ary War was connected with our name.^^ 

In Valerie^s face deepened that black fury. 

“ So my father told me when I asked him about it,” 


62 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


she answered, and an awful pride in that hideous tradition 
connected with her race stamped itself upon her convulsed 
and whitened features. 

“ Tante” she continued, in that repressed tone that 
her words now invested with a sickening awfulness, “I 
know the legend was true of us; for I feel that old spirit 
burning in me now;’^ and in a gloating, malignant look 
. that one would never think possible to her fair, cultured 
prettiness, her eyes traveled on across the glinting waters 
of the hay, where a little figure was pulling her wherry 
sharp and sure for the landing by the old light-house. 

But Trix, unconscious of that horrible look following 
her — still white as death, with a shrinking, nameless fear 
at her heart, and her whole young soul • in a strange 
tumult, aroused by that astounding information flung at^ 
her like a poisonous dart — pressed on her way, her little 
brown nervous hands trembling as they had never trem- 
bled before, as with a death grip they seemed to clutch the 
oars, and sent her spinning over the placid blue surface 
that less than a dozen hours before had lashed itself into 
terrific imitation of those great, treacherous plains, stretch- 
ing far away into the distant horizon. 

Arrived at the little dock the girl sprung out, and drag- 
ging her craft high up on the sands, she turned, and with 
the speed of a young hind ran up to the light-house. 

At the door sat old Brian Vorn. 

As his mate joined him he chuckled in that idle admira- 
tion with which he always regarded her “ tantrums,^^ as 
he styled the girl’s outbreaks of temper, and wondered 
“ who had been catching it now.” 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


63 


But a startling change transpired in the old ex-sea-cap- 
tain's gnarled visage in the next instant, as the girl's low, 
“passionate voice launched forth the question that faithful 
Brian Vorn had hoped he might never hear. 

“Uncle Brian, who am 1 — what am I? Tell me the 
history of my infancy!" 

The old man rose tremblingly upon his crutch and 
stared at Trix with horrified eyes. 


CHAPTER VIll. 

Agitated as Trix had never seen him before, even 
when standing upon the deck of what was supposed to be 
his sinking schooner, old Brian Vorn leaned upon his 
crutch and stared at the terribly excited girl. 

Then as if grown faint under the emotion of the mo- 
ment, the old man sunk down in his chair and passed his 
hand over his brow. 

Trix stood for a moment longer, staring at him with 
her throbbing, dilated eyes; then with a great cry she flung 
herself upon Brian's breast, and sobbed with a misery that 
had never before touched her laughter-loving soul: 

“ Oh, Uncle Brian, tell me that it is a story — tell me 
that l am your own blood-kin niece," she sobbed, passion- 
ately. 

Still Brian sat speechless, only his rough hand smooth- 
ing the silken-black mass of tumbled hair sweeping from 
that little bent head groveling upon his breast. Again 
Trix's wailing voice broke upon the soft hollow “ swish " 
of the waves. 


64 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


“Mrs. Dyncourt told me such dreadful things/’ she 
moaned, clinging tighter to the faithful old man, to whom 
she was as the light of his eye. “ She said that 1 had no 
claim upon you — that 1 was a pauper living on your bounty 
— that 1 was a waif of the sea, in whose veins not a drop of 
your blood flowed. Uncle Brian, if this is so I shall die!” 

The anguish the girl’s passionate misery caused the old 
light-keeper’s faithful heart can better be imagined than 
described. 

Trix’s happiness was dearer to him than his very life, 
and to hear her pleading thus for an assurance that he 
could not— dare not — give, was bitterer than death. But - 
he could not sit mute. 

Thrice did the old seaman clear his throat before he 
could gain sufficient control of his voice to warrant speech; 
and then his tone held more of the yearning tenderness 
that had hedged in all her life than of that official au- - 
sterity that at times it was their mutual delight for him to 
employ toward her. 

“ Mate!” he said, huskily. 

“ Ay, ay, sir ” — but it was a pitiful whisper, choked 
with sobs, and half buried in the deep wrinkles of the old 
seaman’s visage, against which the girl’s soft, dusk face 
was pressed in her bitter heart-break. 

“ Stand up, mate. Pull yourself together — be a man,” 
conjured Brian, his voice growing steadier, despite the pity 
and suffering of his soul. 

Accustomed all her life to the rigor of marine discipline, 
the little mate pulled herself erect, and stood with woful, 
tear-blurred face before her superior officer. 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. G5 

“I had hoped/ ^ began Brian Vorn, “ that I should not 
have to open my log-book for your eyes, my laithful mate, 
until this old hulk of mine was drawing near that last har- 
bor where there are no more storms and’ shipwreck is un- 
known. Then when I was passing in my checks, with may 
be you and your little ones standing round my bed to wish 
me a fair voyage toward that new country, I had thought 
to tell you the story of your early life. But it seems the 
meddlesome tongue of one who had promised me to do her 
best to help me guard the secret from you has upset my 
reckonings. 

For a moment the light-keeper^s countenance darkened 
with a cloud of bitter anger. Then he resumed, with in- 
finite tenderness: 

“ Heave to beside me, my little white craft, while I tell 
you the story of your life. 

Mutely the girl sunk down upon the sands by her be- 
loved one^s side. Mutely she laid her little wet cheek, cold 
in all the springes soft warmth, against the horny hand 
that all her life had hemmed her in and upheld her with a 
mother’s tenderness; while her eyes, sad and heavy as they 
had never been before, roamed out across those shining, 
azure plains, now only ruffled by the white caps of the 
waves, and upon which, here and . there, gliding white 
against the deeper blue of the horizon, showed the snowy 
pinions of the stately vessels sailing by. 

“ Now, then. I’ll spin my yarn; it’s only a short one,” 
began Brian Torn. “ But first of all I want to say, Trix, 
that dearer than life — dearer than children of my own, or 
any kith or kin — have you been to me since the hour that 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


GO 


' 1 picked you up, right down there where those old timbers 
]ie half buried in the sand, a little, half-perished thing 
scarcely a year old, lashed .to a spar. That was sixteen 
years ago, and 1 put it to you, mate, has there ever been a 
^ay — ay, or an kour — since you can remember, which you 
can look back on now and say that you have not been the 
light of my eyes, or that 1 have not loved you with a love 
than which father’s or mother’s, brother’s or sister’s could 
have been stronger? Have 1 not always loved you thus, 
child?” 

“Ay, ay, sir.” The little ex-mate of the schooner 
“ Trix ” was still weeping — but weeping more comforta- 
bly, less violently, as, far above the shock of that rude 
revelation of her early history, the memory of the old 
light-keeper’s devotion rose brave and strong to solace her 
in this trying hour. 

Brian Vorn continued: 

My old friends out there,’’ motioning to the dancing, 
glittering waves, “ have played me many a dirty trick in 
my time; they have at times near been the death of me, 
sunk my ships and maimed me for life. But I can forgive 
them all — they compensated me for all when thc}^ cast you 
up at my feet. I was home on a voyage then, and the 
morning after what was the fiercest storm we had then had 
for a dozen years I took a run across to the beach. It was 
that morning that I found you. I took you to my. home. 
My sister was then living and kept house for me — and as I 
carried you across the beach, a little, dark, bright-eyed 
thing, for all you were half perished, you cuddled right 
down into my heart, where ^ou have lived ever since. But 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


67 


I never told you but what you were my own blood, for 
when you were little you were too young to understand, 
and when you grew older and I saw that your love for the 
old man was as strong as his for you, 1 feared it might 
pain your tender heart. So I kept the truth, having no 
fear that you would hear it from other lips, as you were 
generally away with me on a voyage, while, when you were 
at home. Miss Valerie was your only associate; and Mrs. 
Dyncourt 1 had asked to say nothing to you or her niece of 
the facts of the case, and I supposed that she was a lady 
to keep her word.'’^ 

Again that great darkness swept the old seaman^s counte- 
nance. 

But Trix, who, under her beloved one's tender render- 
ing of the truth, had been gradually growing more com- 
posed and comforted — Trix, with her fearless, just soul, 
could not permit all the blame to lie with her old friends, 
whose hatred of her she could not even yet accept or com- 
pass. 

So great had been her fury at the time-, she could not 
now remember who had been the originator of the disturb; 
ance no more than she could recall the exact words 
spoken; but under a full realization of her own imperfec- 
tions of temper, her generous heart was rather inclined to 
believe that she had been the first cause of the discord. 

“ Mrs. D 3 mcourt was not wholly to blame. Uncle 
Brian," she said, lifting a face that was gathering back a 
portion of its old brightness, yet so small a portion that it 
md.de but the more piteous the sad little drooping of her 
lips and the grieved look of her eyes. “ 1 — I- — must have 


C8 THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 

said something particularly nasty to enrage her; and then 
she paid me back by sneering at you^ which she knew 
would cut me up worse than anything; and then I — I — 
got in one of my horrid tempers and twitted her with her 
nose. 1 don’t know whether you have ever noticed it. 
Uncle Brian, but it is a little bit pink.” 

“ Ay, ay; and so was her mother’s, and her father’s, 
and her grandfather’s, and so on back. They’ve always 
been a selfish, intemperate set,” said the light-keeper, a 
little bitterly. 

“ Uncle Brian, have you told me all?” murmured the 
girl, after a pause. 

“ Not quite. 1 never could find any clew to your iden- 
tity or the shipwreck that must have cast you upon the 
seas. As I have told you, it was a fearful storm the night 
before, and many a ship went down that j^e never heard 
of. For weeks afterward there were dead bodies cast up 
along our coast — some of them lie buried over there,” and 
Brian pointed across the sands to the sad, dreary spot 
where the six graves were fenced in by the pine railing, 
and of which Trix had always had a mortal horror. Even 
now she shuddered, as in a species of fascination her eyes 
traveled down^the beach to it, the stunted line of shrub- 
bery that there began seeming to add to th^dreary desola- 
tion of the scene. 

* The old light-keeper resumed: 

“ Though 1 never had any positive clew, there was on 
one of your tiny fingers a gold ring, which 1 took off and 
saved, believing that in time it might help you to come 
into your own; for that your parents were wealthy there is 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


69 


no doubt, my mate; your clothes, the few that were left 
ou you, being of the finest texture. Wait here, while I get 
the riiig.^^ 

Brian arose, stumped into the little sitting-room, where 
he sought a curiously wrought foreign cabinet that he had 
picked up in some of his voyages to distant lands. 

Unlocking the door of this, he took from a secret com- 
partmeQt a small box, with which he returned to his 
former seat by the open door. 

Opening the box, he handed the silent, wide-eyed Trix 
the tiny hoop of gold that with her had made that perilous 
voyage through the briny deep. 

It was only a chased infantas ring, such as are ordinarily 
used; but the girBs great eyes, now somber with excite- 
ment, lingered over it reverently. 

This tiny circlet was the badge of that love that she had 
never known. It had, beyond doubt, been placed upon 
her finger by some fond heart long since sleeping in the 
ocean’s bed. 

Ah, poor, poor heart! was it upon woes and sufferings 
or blessings and happiness that those cruel depths have 
placed the seal of perhaps an endless secrecy? 

As with conflicting emotions Trix examined the little 
souvenir, she perceived, engraved on the inner side, some 
infinitesimal characters. 

“ There is something written in it!” she exclaimed, 
eagerly. 

“Ay, ay, mate!” answered Brian. “I inquired long 
ago as to what it might mean, as you see it is in a differ- 
ent language, and was told that it is an old Latin talisman 


70 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


signifying, ‘To the end.^ It must have been the watch- 
word of your parents, mate/’ 

Again that intense silence fell. 

Guilda was sitting with that strange woman ill in one of 
the circular chambers above. Not a human being save 
themselves was in sight. 

Afar off on the glittering expanse of the Atlantic silvery 
sails glided to and fro; the waves beat upon the beach with 
a mellow cadence that held no hint of the hoarse thunder 
with which they send their victims to their last accounts. 

A ray of the brilliant sunlight, flooding all nature, found 
out the little dusky head bending over the ring, and 
seemed to bring into stronger relief that quaint old phrase 
stamping it, “ Adjinem.^* 

Again and again Trix said it to herself — this sentence 
that must have been the magic talisman of her parents’ 
love. 

Ay, “ to the end!” had it been — to the bitter end of 
roaring seas and murderous gales and- a grave in the briny 
depths. 

Yet so also had it been “ to the end,” if the two went 
together — together strong through love — together facing 
death —together stepping from the storm and turmoil of 
seething seas into the peace and rest of the great hereafter, 
where their souls, grown purer and stronger, still reveled 
in their mutual devotion. 

And somehow Trix felt, with this passing awe and sol- 
emnity upon her, that it was to this -‘end ” that watch- 
word referred and those devoted, hearts aspired. 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


71 


CHAPTER IX. 

“ The main feature in the case is yet to come, mate!^^ 

Brian^s voice broke the sunshiny hush. “ A few hours 
after you were washed ashore that never-to-be-forgotten 
day, a woman in a small boat was rescued by some of our 
bay- men who were out looking around after castaways. 
IShe was over a mile out at sea, and almost unconscious 
through exposure. They brought her in, and as she in- 
quired, after she had somewhat revived, as to whether cer- 
tain persons which she described had been found, among 
whom was-^ baby, they brought her to my cottage,, think- 
ing that my baby — you — might be the one. 

“ And was 1 not?” inquired Trix, breathlessly. 

“ Now comes the strangest part,” returned the light- 
keeper. “I could have sworn that you were, although 
she declared that you were not. She \^s apparently very 
much exhausted by her terrible experience, so all forbore 
to question her concerning the shipwreck, and by what 
means, she had drifted away alone in the life-boat. In the 
morning, when she would probably be stronger, we could 
secure the particulars. My sister put her to bed in a 
chamber on the ground-floor, and went in to see her the 
last thing at night. We never saw her afterward. In the 
morning, when sister Tabitha went in to find out how she 
was doing, the room was empty. She had gone.” 

“ Gone!” gasped Trix, blankly. “ How— where?” 

“ That we never knew to a certainty. The only suppo- 
sition is that she either wandered away in the night in de- 


72 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


lirium, or for some purpose of her ewn did not care to 
meet us again, and so fled. We made inquiries, but never 
heard of her afterward.’’ 

“How. strange — how mysterious!” exclaimed Trjx, 
after another silence. “But you said. Uncle Brian, that 
you were almost positive that 1 was the child she had made 
inquiries about. What cause had you for thinking so?” 

“ Well, in the boat with her was found a small water- 
proof bag. After the woman disappeared so mysteriously 
I examined the contents of this, for she left it behind, 
why, I can not tell, unless it was that she had forgotten 
it.” 

“ And its contents. Uncle Brian?” breathed Trix. 

“ My dear, they were of little consequence so far as dis- 
covering your identity is concerned. It must have been 
that the woman picked the bag up almost unconsciously in 
the excitement of leaving the ship. I have always noticed 
that in times of sBipwreck if the victims save anything it 
is generally something of little importance. So it must 
have been in this case. The bag contained an infant’s 
change of aj)parel and a beautiful and costly lace dress, 
which must have belonged to the infant’s mother. Some 
day you shall see it, Trix. I want you to keep it for your 
wedding-dress! 1 know that the woman that brought 
that bag on shore was connected in some way with you; 
for, mark you, she claimed the bag as her property. 
Now then, mate, the infant’s clothes it contained 
were exactly of the size, style, and quality of those you 
had on. This, taken in connection with the fact that she 
had inquired after a baby, would have been sufficient to 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 73 

prove that fact, even if I had not found pinned to the lace 
dress a diamond brooch, on the back of which were en- 
graved the same characters that are in that little ring. 
‘ To the end ^ is written on the brooch even plainer than it 
is on that tiny circle that you are holding. Now, my 
dear, you have all the particulars.^^ 

“ There can be no doubt of it,^^ murmured Trix, at 
last; “ the woman must have in some manner been con- 
nected with me. Could she liave^ been my mother? Ah! 
I can not believe it.” ^ 

“ Nor 1, mate. I have watched you day by day, to see 
if you were growing into any similarity to that woman, and 
I have been thankful to see that there was none; for, who- 
ever she was, that woman was not a good woman— be sure 
of that. Even if her actions had left me any room to 
doubt, her face told the story. I believe you are the child 
of the lady to whom the lace dress belonged. "Judging by 
it, she must have been exactly your size and build. 

“ Then, if that is so, what was the woman you sheltered 
doing with my mother^’s property?^^ muttered Trix, in 
profoundest thought. 

“ True enough; that is only one of the many mysteries 
of this mysterious case. Another is, why did the woman 
feel interested enough in your fate to inquire if you had 
been found, and yet, when confronted with yon, deny all 
knowledge of you and decamp, leaving you to the care of 
strangers? But donT puzzle your little brain about it any 
more,^" broke off Brian, with a gentleness reserved alone 
for his little mate. “ It^s done with, and weTl let it rest. 
All I hope is, mate, that you wonT let the knowledge 


7 ■^ 


THE LITTLE LIGnT-HOUSE LASS. 


that you were probably born to a higher rank than I can 
give you make you discontented with your old captain and 
the humble life you lead;’^ and there was rather a wistful 
gleam in the old light-keeper’s eyes. 

Those words roused Trix from her preoccupation. With 
her face bathed in the glowing light of intense affection, to 
which the history of her infancy now added 'a passionate 
gratitude, she rose from her knees, and, flinging her arms 
around her beloved captain, clung to him in an excess of 
love that brought to him not only reassurance, but such a 
suspicious moisture before his still keen eyes that he was 
obliged to bestir himself and seek the aegis and “Support of 
his official dignity. 

Thrice he cleared his throat, with a sound that was 
something like the snort of a war-horse, after whicb he 
gave the usual challenge to his “ mate.” 

“ Ay, ay, sir!” cried she, springing to her feet, with 
very nearly her old lightness and gayety restored, only a 
little saddened shade, aroused by thoughts of her lost par- 
ents, dimming her lustrous e^^es. 

“ Away with you to the rack, and turn the seine. Then 
get your skiff in readiness, and weTl run down the bay to 
where we saw the school of weakfish day before yester- 
day!” 

And thus the history of the past closed, with each of the 
comrades knowing that, if possible, it but more closely 
cemented the love and fellowship between them. 

Later in the day — in fact, a few moments before sunset, 
which is the hour for lighting the lamps along the coast — 
Trix,‘on her way up to the tower, dropped into the room 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


76 


where the stranger lay. Guilda sat by the bedside, nod- 
ding drowsily, while in through the narrow, deep-set win- 
dow, that was more like a port-hole, stole the crimson rays 
of the fast-setting sun, gilding all the white interior of the 
little chamber which was Trix^s own. 

But nothing did the monarch, dying in the west on his 
couch of rose and amber and azure, more brightly illumi- 
nate than that haggard face upon the pillows. 

Trix expected to find the invalid either asleep or mut- 
tering incoherently in delirium. 

Neither was the case. 

To her surprise, full, conscious, intelligent, her eyes 
met hers, and with a little exclamation of joy the girl hur- 
ried up to the bedside. 

But first she turned to Guilda. 

“ You may go up and light the lamp while 1 watch 
here,’^ she said, lowly. “ It will be a change for you, 
and you must be tired of the confinement.’’^ 

As the old woman vanished, Trix bent over the bed. 

“You are better she inquired, gently, of its occu- 
pant. 

“I — 1 guess so,^^ stammered that individual, faintly. 
“ Will you tell me where 1 am?’^ 

‘ You are with friends, replied Trix, evasively, fear- 
ing the effect of abrupt speech upon her companion, weak- 
ened by disease. 

“lam thankful for that. I— 1 have bitter enough foes 
to be with if they could but get hold of me,''lnuttered 
the other involuntarily. 

“You have been ill and in great danger/" observed 


76 THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 

Trix, gently. “ Do you remember any of the particulars 
of your illness?^' 

The woman raised one hand to her brow, which sudden- 
ly knit, and was silent for a moment. Then an abrupt 
exclamation broke from her: 

“ I begin to remember! I fell ill on board the steamer 
on which 1 had embarked for New York. 1 must have 
been out of my mind since then. What am I doing here? 
Is this New York?’' 

“ This is Light-house, on the Jersey coast,” ex- 

plained Trix. 

A strange light leaped to the woman’s eyes. She lay 
still for a time, staring in a half-frightened way out of the 
window. 

Then she turned to Trix, who was regarding her won- 
deringly. 

“ What am 1 doing at Light-house?” she inquired, 

in an unsteady voice. “ How did I get here?” 

“ The steamer was wrecked on the shoals last night, and 
you were brought off by the surf-guard, who carried you 
here,” explained Trix. 

The woman seemed terribly agitated by the news. In 
the crimson glow of the setting sun Trix saw a dewy moist- 
ure rise to her sunken brow, and her handsome brown eyes 
seemed starting from their sockets. 

For full a moment she lay mute, then her whitened lips 
moved. 

“ It is' fate!” broke from them, almost inaudibly. 

Trix regarded her, very much surprised and undecided 
as to how she should proceed. 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-lIOtlSE LASS. 1^7 

“ Poor soul! her brain must be still a little bit cloud- 
ed she thought. 

Aloud, she inquired: 

‘ ‘ Is there any one to whom you would like me to send 
word of your condition? Have you no friends that will be 
anxious to know your fate, when they hear of the steamer^s 
foundering? And — 1 don’t wish to appear curious — but 
what shall I call you?” 

The woman turned and looked at her companion with 
her feverish, glittering eyes. 

“ You may call me June; that is my first name. No, I 
have no friends,” she replied, hollowly. 

“ What a pretty, odd name,” thought Trix. “ But how 
sadr for her to be alone in the world. I am glad that I had 
her brought here. Poor, poor woman; she seems very un- 
happy. What can she have done that even in delirium 
she was wishing- to atone? Even if 1 knew, 1 thhik I 
should pity more than blame her, she h%s such a particu- 
larly broken-hearted appearance.” 

The moist brow of her called J une was deeply knit, and 
her eyes gleamed bright and brighter in their deep sockets. 
Looking at her, with the hectic spot gleaming blood-red 
upon each sunken cheek, Trix began to realize that it 
was not alone the fever that ailed her. The fever she was 
recovering from; but beyond and before that was a radical 
weakness that had culminated in that dread disease — con- 
sumption. 

It spoke in her glittering eyes, her sharp, quick breath- 
ing, and that wavering spot of fiame in either cheek. 

She was evidently inwrapped in such bitterly unhappy 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-flOUSE LASS. 

meditations, that tender-hearted Trix, who could not have 
borne to see a worm unhappy, had she known it, began 
bethinking herself of some means of diverting her com- 
panion’s thoughts. 

To this end she now broke the silence. 

“ Would you like to hear the particulars of the steamer’s 
striking the shoals?” she inquired in her clear, fresh 
voice, that was of itself almost enough to give strength to 
the strengthless. “ There' is quite a story connected'with' 
it To-day, some men from Xew York, in the employ of 
the government, were down here interviewing us, and try- 
ing to sift the strange affair. ” 

June moved her head in a listless token of assent, and 
Trix began her account of the strange man forcing his 
Vay into the light -house and shading the light with such 
disastrous results. 

Although June had manifested an uncom23limentary 
lack of interest at the commencement, before the narrator 
had proceeded far she developed a most flattering interest, 
her feed glance seeming to gather an added fire, and those 
flickering jtongues of flame leaping up and widening, until 
the whole of her cheeks were of a brilliant carmine. 

As Trix finished, she lifted herself upon one trembling 
arm, and with the whole of her wretched, mysterious soul 
seeming to ply her companion through her hollow eyes and 
her hoarse, eager voice, she gasped: 

“And this man— this devil — who put out the light in 
his attempt to drown the steamer’s passengers, was he 
tall, slender, finely dressed, with black hair closely 
cropped, and a black mustache?” 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LxVSS. 


79 


Trix was stariug at her companion in the profoimdest 
amazement. She had described, not the red -headed mon- 
ster of the light-house episode, but Armand St. Clair, with 
the utmost exactitude. 

“ That was not the man that foundered the steamer!’^ 
she exclaimed, when she had somewhat recovered from her 
amazement; “ he was a man with red hair and mustache, 
though he was tall and slender. But 1 know just such a 
gentleman as you describe-^he is Mr. Armand St. Clair, 
now visiting at The Breakers. ’’ 

For still a moment longer the woman supported herself 
on her trembling arm; then it gave way and she fell back 
upon the pillows, staring at Trix with a look in her start- 
ing eyes that haunted the girl for many an^hour after- 
w^ard. 

“ Are you ill? Can I do anything for you?’^ she in- 
quired, half frightened out of her wits by the other^s 
strange look. 

June said never a word; still that shrinking, horrified 
glance burned in her eyes, and her slehder, almost attenu- 
ated form was convulsed with a great trembling. 

At last her ashen lips parted. 

“ He will come again— that man -who shaded the light,” 
she said, in a holfow voice of indescribable emotion. “ Be 
sure, if 1 stay here long enough, he will come again. ” 

Of a tangible peril Trix, as has already been seen, was 
not afraid; and yet, as she looked at this frail, shivering, 
mysterious woman convulsed with her great secret fear, 
an answering thrill of terror shot through her own soul. 
It was more for the invalid than herself. 


80 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


“ He will not come again, I think,^^ she said, gently, 
yet feeling all the while as if of a sudden her gay, free, 
happy life had been girded about by a wizard’s circle of 
vile mystery. “ There is great excitement about the affair 
of wrecking the steamer. He has probably made good his 
escape and will not dare venture back here again.” 

“ You might think so, but you don’t know him,” mut- 
tered June’s low, palpitating voice, and she spoke as 
though she were addressing herself more than her com- 
panion. “ He has always done what no one else would 
dare to do — w'hat one would not even expect in him.” 

Trix’s surprise and bewilderment increased.' The wom- 
an spoke as if there was an intimate and disastrous ac- 
quaintance between her and the man that figured in that 
woful experience of hers in the light-tower. How could 
it be possible? They must almost of necessity be 
strangers. 

It must be that her brain was still W'eak and filled with 
the fancies of fever. 

“ I have done her no good. She can not be worse with- 
out me. I will leave her and send Guilda back to her,” 
thought Trix, and she rose, and with a pleasant w'ord- of 
good-bye was leaving the room. 

J line called her back. ^ 

As Trix came to her bedside she seized her hand, and, 
holding it fast between her clay-cold fingers, stared up into 
her face with a look of terrible appeal. 

“ You are a good girl— -you have a pitying, fearless 
soul,” she half whispered, yet in a tone that held a desper- 
ate urgency. “ Already you have stood my friend; will 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. * ,81 

\ 

you continue to be my friend until I can get away from 
here?’^ 

“In every way that I can/^ replied Trix, and for the 
moment her nerves were strangely susceptible to the 
other’s suppressed but burning excitement. 

“ Then promise me that you will keep every one away 
from me, promise that not a soul but yourselves shall 
come near me on whatever pretense. Promise it — swear 
it — for more depends upon it than your innocent soul 
can dream of.V 

“ 1 promise — I promise!” cried Trix, and hurri(xl out, 
trembling with a vague, indefinable influence that she had 
never before experienced. 

Oppressed by that sensation until she felt as though she 
were suffocating, the girl left, the light-house, and with 
Lion as usual at her heels, started for a tramp down the 
beach, Thinking thus to dissipate that unusual gloom 
clouding her spirits. 

But in this she was not successful, and at last she flung 
herself upon the sands, and with her face propped upon 
her arms looked out far away across the ocean growing 
hazy in the russet glow of evening. 

“ What ails me to-night?” she muttered. “ That poor 
woman seems to have cast a gloom over me. I — I — some- 
how feel choked, oppressed, as if something were hanging 
over me. Perhaps it is the effect of hearing my early his- 
tory. My poor, poor parents! they are dead. I know it. 
I feel it. You cruel, cruel waters! how I hate you when 
I think of those dear lives sucked down by you!” 


82 THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 

The girl’s words sunk into silence. She lay still, star- 
ing at the green billows with her gloomy, unquiet eyes. 

Suddenly the hush was broken by the savage growling of 
the blood-hound that lay close up beside her, and in the 
next instant the huge beast had sprung up, had darted 
through the air and had precipitated itself upon some ob- 
ject as yet unseen by his mistress. 

With a thrill of terror Trix leaped to her feet to see 
Lion hanging with all his weight to the tall, sinewy form 
of Armand St. Clair, who, staggering under the weight of 
the gaunt monster, had his utmost powers taxed to keep 
his throat out of reach of the huge, blood-red mouth with 
its glittering fangs. 

It was a vital moment. 

Trammeled as he was, the gentleman could do nothing 
toward releasing himself from the brute that of a sudden 
seemed to have gone mad and developed the blood-thirsti- 
ness of a tiger. 

Trix never hesitated in her course of action for a mo- 
ment. With a low word of fierce command thrice she 
called Lion off. Then seeing that he was plainly beyond 
her control, she sprung upon the dog, and her little, lean, 
sinewy hands closed about his great throat like slender 
bands of steel. 

The maddened beast struggled desperately to release 
himself, but with the very grip of death Trix clung on. 
St. Clair, thus opportunely assisted, at last succeeded in 
v/renching his right arm free, which he of course in- 
stantly raised to deal a furious bk)W upon his antagonist. 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 8)> 

But even in the excitement of that movement, when to- 
gether they struggled with the brute that almost threat- ^ 
eued to overpower them both, Trix thrust forward her lit- 
tle savage face, and her red lips, now tightly compressed, 
parted to show her small, glittering teeth in a markedly 
determined fashion. 

“Don’t touch him — don’t you dare strike him!” she 
uttered,^fiercely. “ He needs punishment, but*your hand 
shall not be the one to mete it to him.” 

Almost as she spoke a huge tremor convulsed the half- 
choked animal, and in the next instant he released his 
hold upon the man, and down upon the sands, in a writh- 
ing heap, tumbled girl and dog. 

But despite her defense of him, Trix’s fury at the dog’s 
disobedience W'as not yet speirt. Too loyal to him to per- 
mit the hand of a stranger to punish him, she yet- was 
keenly alive to the offense of his insubordination, and now 
lying upon the sands where she had fallen, her brown fin- 
gers still clung in that stubborn grip to the hairy throat of 
the rebel. Kot until the dog’s tongue was hanging from 
his mouth, and the animal was plainly not only subdued 
but half dead, did the girl relinquish her hold. Then^ 
springing up, she planted her little, strongly shod feet 
upon the lank ribs of the prostrate foe, and standing thus 
upon him glanced down at him with a look in her eyes 
that kept the beast motionless as he had fallen. 

“ Well done!” exclaimed a low voice of intense admira- 
tion at this juncture, and Carew stepped forward. “St. 
Clair,” he continued, “ you must have had what might be 
justly termed ‘a close call.’ I was following you from 


84 


Tllii LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


the yacht and saw it all, though 1 was too far ofi to render 
assistance.’^ 

Then Felix’s eyes turned again in the direction of the 
panting, flaming-visaged Trix with an expression new to 
his cool, careless indifference. 

“ Miss Vorn — for 1 am sure it is she — 1 never saw a bet- 
ter battle than that!” he exclaimed, his glance lingering 
in a way that told its own story over the splendid, untamed 
face, the little clinched hands, the small, exquisite figure 
instinct with its fiery spirit of the conqueror. 

St. Clair was also regarding her with a fixed, peculiar 
regard, the predominating quality of which it would be 
difficult to determine. That flaming, bluish light in his 
velvety eyes might have been either purest passion or bit- 
terest hatred. 

Finally, his thin, satirical lips parted in their slow, mys- 
terious smile. 

“ You forbade my touching the brute — 1 fancy you 
have dealt him a worse punishment than 1 would have 
done,” he said, in his mellow, scoffing voice, that seemed 
always to send a chill over the rich, warm life of Trix. 

“ 1 had to — he must obey me, even if there were no 
danger in disobedience,” she gasped, still breathless with 
wrath and exertion. “ He might kill some of us some day 
if 1 were not master. And yet ” — a pretty, grieved droop 
gliding into the corners of her quivering, scarlet lips — “ I 
— 1 have not often had to treat him like this. • I have al- 
most always been able to govern him through love. ” 

Carew, in a mixture of amusement and keenest admira- 
tion, was steadily regarding the girl. What a spirit lived 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


85 


in that form, so slight, so wondrous that one might fancy, 
as she stood there upon the great, tawny body of the van- 
quished blood-hound, that she was the creation of a sculpt- 
or ^s rarest fancy. 

What a study, what a fascinating mystery, was this little 
creature who had dwelt always in the salt spray and the 
roar of the sea, with her ever-changing, tempestuous tem- 
perament; with her pixy mischief and elfish wickedness 
one moment, and her grand heroism the next. 

Felix Garew was a man not perfect by any means; he 
had his share of vanity, and folly, and fashionable vices, 
as what man v/hose fascinations and fortune have made 
him the favorite of the drawing-room has not. 

But down deep beneath the callous worldly experience 
and the superficialness and cynicism of a thorough knowl- 
edge of society and human nature in general was a passion- 
ate, loyal nature not by any means all gone to waste. 

And yet, so sad was his experience with man and wom- 
ankind, that faith came tardily to his half-imbittped soul. 

So deeply into his nature had eaten the canker of sus- 
picion, that had a real affection been cast at his feet, he 
would hardly stoop and pick it up, in his fear of mistak- 
ing the false for the genuine. 

Years ago, when he was little more than a boy, he had 
loved with the unreasoning, all-confiding vehemence of 
only a boy's nature. He had been deceived; the lady had 
flung him over for a German baron, “ fat and forty," and 
for a time it had gone hard with him. 3 

Since then he had had time to grow out of his fancy — to 
laugh at it as a boy's foliy; but the bitter revelation of 


8G THE LITTLE LIGIIT-HOUSE LASS. 

woman's falsity had left its influence on his nature in a 
secret cynicism that it would be hard to vanquish. 

In the twenty-four hours that he had known Valerie^ so 
artfully had that young lady played her role of cultured 
gentleness and sweet simplicity, this had come nearer be- 
ing accomplished than ever before in all the decade of years 
that had passed since the love of his youth sacrificed a 
loyal heart for an empty title. 

Valerie was fair, and gentle, and lady-like; surely no 
man weary of the dissipation and hollow gayeties of the 
world need wish a better-bred wife or a fairer mother for 
his children. 

And yet, at times during the day, when listening to Miss 
Dyncourt's soft voice which, after a time he could not but 
find just a little wearisome through the very sameness of 
its sweetness, the echo of the fiute-like yet passion-tossed 
tones that he had heard sweeping fury upon Mrs. Dyn- 
court that morning shot through his soul, to awaken in it 
a vaigue unrest and yearning strange to it for many years. 

And now the owner of that voice stood again before 
him, and his soul half went out toward her in a readiness 
that roused his resentment and made him quicker than 
even was his wont in remembering that bitter, humiliating 
shut page of his early life. 

Could there — was it possible that there could be— -deceit 
in that small, flashing-eyed creature on whom his glance 
now so willingly lingered? 

Passionate, undisciplined she undeniably was; but those 
were not cardinal offenses — indeed, so worn was he by the 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOLSE LASS. 87 

conventionality of the world, that he more readily than 
others could appreciate the added charm they lent the girl. 

But deceit — deceit, that monster that he so abhorred — 
had it any harbor in her young, vehement soul? 

“Pshaw! 1 am growing lachrymose and sentimental,-’^ 
he thought, in self-contempt. “ What is it to me whether 
a little termagant is honest and open as the day, or a very 
Machiavel in petticoats? The girl will probably never 
cross my path again. 

At this moment Trix^s voice, now plaintive but half 
apologetic, broke in upon his meditations. 

“ I don’t know what could have possessed him,’^ she 
was saying to Mr. St. Clair; both were still eying the dog 
prostrate in his disgrace. “He is of course savage by 
nature, but I never thought he would attack any one with- 
out 1 gave the word.’^ 

“ And you did not give the word? Are you quite sure. 
Miss Vorn, that you did not set your dog on me for some 
secret offense?’^ asked St. Clair, with that peculiar smile. 

“Certainly not!” cried Trix, indignantly. “Why 
should 1 have done such a thing as that? Oh, my, how 
he does dislike you, Mr. St. Clair!” she continued, aghast, 
as at the sound of St. Clair’s voice a quiver ran through 
the lank body upon which she stood, and the great blood- 
shot eyes turned menacingly toward the gentleman. 

Trix now stepped down, but with her authoritative eyes 
still fixed upon the dog. 

“ Up, sir, and kiss the gentleman’s hand,” she com- 
manded, sternly. 


88 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


The aog rose and dragged itself with a crouching mo- 
tion across the sands to where St. Clair stood. 

In the next instant a wild shriek broke from the girFs 
lips. 


CHAPTEE X. 

As that cry broke from Trix, Carew quickly turned to 
her wonderingly. 

Lion had thrust his black muzzle against St. Clair’s 
hand, obedient to orders, so thoroughly had the "girl re- 
gained control of him, and now had crawled back, where 
he lay crouched at her feet. 

But St. Clair understood the cause of that cry of nerv- 
ous alarm: it had been called forth by the flaming glance 
of hatred that had shot from the brute’s eyes as he per- 
formed his act of humiliation and penitence. 

He himself, though cowardice could not be rated among 
his failings, had shufldered inwardly as he met that mur- 
derous gaze. 

“ I— I thought he was going to spring at you again,” 
stammered Trix. “ Oh, Mr. St. Clair, if he ever gets the 
chance he wiil tear you to pieces — he will kill you!” 

“By Heaven, I half believe you!” muttered St. Clair, 
involuntarily. Then in his light, sarcastic tone he con- 
tinued: “ Well, considering his amiable little weakness for 
me, 1 must ask you to keep the brute tied up during my 
stay around here.” 

1 will I will! He shall not come out with me again 
without a muzzle on,” replied Trix, lowly. 

Qarew, who seemed to find a never-ending source of in- 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


89 


terest in studying Trix’s mobile, changeful countenance, 
was still gazing at her fixedly. That grieved drooping 
about her lips had been growing stronger in the past mo- 
jnent, while her glance had been wandering in a sort of 
remorseful tenderness to the huge brute lying at her feet, 
his glance, now piteous and eager, raised to her face; and 
now, down ’'over the girTs dusky, oval cheek Carew saw 
two large tears slip, quickly followed by another pair, and 
so 'on, until a perfect rain of grief wet her face and con- 
cealment was impossible. 

Then, with a low cry, Trix flung herself upon the sands 
beside the dog, and burying her face in his neck, sobbed 
in a perfect tempest of misery, her beautiful, half-naked 
arms winding tighter and tighter about the huge hairy 
shoulders. 

“ Why did you make me do it? why did you, Lion?’^ 
was the burden of this young Niobe’s cry. “ Why did not 
you leave that hateful man alone? for it has broken my 
heart that I have had to punish you so!’" 

With attentive eyes both men looked down at that little 
groveling figure at their feet. 

In St. Clair’s was a gleam of that cold, merciless hos- 
tility that Paula Dyncourt had divined existed in his 
bosom for this heedless, defiant, unimpressionable nature 
that aroused his worst spirit of wrath and retaliation, 
while in his friend Carew’s had come a quick gleam of 
that intense passion that slumbered under the nonchalant 
coolness of his polished exterior. 

“ By Heaven! if that is acting, it is the most perfect I 
ever witnessed,” he thought, as his handsome gray eyes. 


DO 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


filled with that unusual warmth, rested in a species of 
fascination upon that slight form, its every perfect curve 
revealed by the unstudied abandon of her position, and 
that little, tumbled black head, its silken, luxuriant mane 
sweeping its affluence in the glittering sands. 

“ The creature is a study for an artist,^’ he continued, 
his breath quickening a little as Trix suddenly lifted her 
head with the quick grace of an antelope and gazed rapt- 
urously ill the dog^s eyes, as with his huge blood-red. 
tongue the brute fondly licked her hair and hands in token 
of his pardon. “ Her every motion is a poem, her every 
glance a study! By Heaven! it would be worth not a lit- 
tle, from a psychological point of view, to know whether 
she is the most artless child in creation, or the most arrant 
actress that ever bi'eathed. 

Just then Trix rose to her feet, one hand resting on the 
throat of her savage pet, now standing meek and subdued 
beside her, her long, moist lashes lifted so that her eyes, 
with that same wondrous topaz gleam afar back in their 
depths that her hair caught in the sunlight, shone out glad 
and full, her face smiling radiantly through the traces of 
her recent passionate grief. 

“ I know you are calling me a little fool; don^t deny it, 
Mr. Carew,’^ she cried, with a charming, genuine archness 
that Valerie Hyncourt would have given half her fortune 
to have successfully copied. “ And I suppose 1 must be 
one, since all my friends tell me so; but really, you know, 

I should not have slept a wink to-night if Lion and I had 
not made it up.^^ 

And now, for the first time, Felix Carew realized that 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


91 


this small siren could be really dangerous to a man’s peace 
of mind. He had hitherto admired her the same as one 
admires a beautiful painting"'or a rare piece of statuary, 
because one can not help it. But from what little he 
knew of her he had believed that she was nothing more 
that an ill-governed, fiery-tempered child — ^.a little savage, 
whom a man’s intelligence and refinement would never 
permit him to love. 

Now, to his amazement, she developed a gay esyrit, a 
graceful self-possession that auy society woman might 
have envied, and which constituted her the most charming 
mass of contradiction that the feminine form ever per- 
sonated. 

“ I hope,” proceeded Trix, raising to Oarew’s visage 
her large, dusk eyes, now soft and shining as summer 
seas, “ that you will not let what has passed cause you to 
think too hardly of my poor Lion. To me, at least, he is 
a devoted friend.” 

‘ ‘ That were sufficient to make one condone the faults 
of a certain monster far worse than Lion, commonly sup- 
posed to prowl about with horns and cloven foot and a 
tail Heaven knows how long,” answered Carew, with his 
light laugh; yet St. Clair, watching him furtively, saw- a 
fire in his glance that he had never seen there before. 
“ But, don’t you know, it really is odd, St. Clair, what 
causes the brute to betray such a fancy for your cuticle,” 
continued Carew, turning with an appreciative grin to the 
alert, mysterious, elegant gentleman at his side. 

Under the sweeping ends of St. Clair’s mustache frhat 
flickering, fugitive smile that so disagreeably impressed 


92 


TllK LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


Trix gleamed for a moment as he turned his eyes in sar- 
donic mirth upon that uncomfortable young person. 

“ ‘ ^Tis pity, but His true/ quote he, with his soft 
laugh; “and since such is the case, 1 can only trust to 
Miss Vorn’s kindness not to let him eat me quite up.^^ 

“ I shall chain him directly I get home,^-’ answered 
Trix, a little curtly. Somehow she could not feel at ease 
with this elegant man whom Valerie Dyncourt loved as 
she loved her soul. 

“ Under that assurance I shall venture to remain on the 
beach awhile longer, unless you are in a hurry, Carew,^^ 
observed St. Clair. 

“I am going over to The Breakers. Mr. Carew may 
come with me if he wishes,^^ said Trix at tins juncture. 

Carew availed himself of this invitation with alacrity; 
and bidding St. Clair au revoir, the two started, first for 
the light-house, where Lion was chained, and Mr. Carew 
was introduced to the old light-keeper, and then to the 
quay along the bay, where Trix^s skiff was locked, and in 
which they were soon gliding across the smooth waters on 
their way to The Breakers. 

For awhile Trix’s blithe tongue was as busy as usual; 
and Carew listened in something like enchantment to her 
laughing, gay witticisms, which held a resistless charm of 
unconsciousness. Then as they approached the opposite 
side of the bay he saw her lovely arch face lengthen and 
grow more and more sober, until by the time they had 
gained the entrance of the moonlit grounds of The Break- 
ers4t was a rather pale and very grave little creature who 
was walking soberly beside him. 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


03 


At the great gates Carew paused and looked curiously 
down at his companion. 

It was a perfect night. All over the quiet country a'hd 
the glistening sea in the distance lay the white sheen of 
the queenly moon; the air was fresh and crisp with the 
pungent smell of the salt breakers, tempered just here 
with the subtle, delicate perfume of the rare exotics bloom- 
ing near. 

A brooding silence for the most part clothed the earth, 
broken only by the hollow, distant roar of the surf, and 
nearer by the sharp, clear sound of music floating up from 
the bay, where a pleasure party whiled away the moonlit 
hours. 

“It is too fair a night to take you in. 1 almost wish 
this could last forever,^^ murmured Carew, involuntarily, 
losing his head a trifle under the voluptuous, passing fair- 
ness of that dusky face into which he was looking. 

A strange quick fire leaped into Trix’s young veins; her 
pulse tingled madly, her face grew warm with a rich life 
that had never before thrilled her — the life of awakening 
q)assion. 

“How handsome, how magnificent he looks!’' she 
thought, the blood seeming to race like wildfire through 
all her being. “ Can it be that he does indeed wish that 
we could be always together like this?” 

Such a subtle influence was his glance gaining over her 
that she was obliged to break away; and, too much agitat- 
ed to care for appearances, she turned, and like a. fright- 
ened little wild thing made a dash for the great gates. 


94 


THE LITTLE LIGIIT-HOUSE LASS. 


But her fingers trembled so that she could not undo the 
fastenings^ and in the next instant Carew was beside her. 

“ Trix, little Trix/^ he murmured, his handsome feat- 
ures bathed with a light that showed how tender and pas- 
sionate his soul could be under certain influences, “are 
you running away from me, Trix?^-’ 

“ I am not, sir,^^ said Trix, crossly, suddenly growing 
ashamed of her flustered flight. “ What a donkey he 
must think me, cutting away like that at the first civil 
word he utters she thinks, viciously. “ Of course he is 
laughing at me in his soul. 

But he was not laughing at her; on the contrary, he was 
wondering if by any means he could win this laughing, 
witching, maddening cliild for his own,’ provided he should 
want her. 

And he was wondering if, after he or any one had won 
her, he should find her true as she looked. 

No doubt the devil of deceit was as strong at her heart 
as at every other woman ^s that he had been thrown in 
with. 

At this reflection he pulled himself up abruptly, and a 
smile of self -contempt curved his lips. 

“ Truly, 1 am outdoing that old folly of mine to allow 
myself to be bewitched by a little country vixen whom I 

have known scarcely forty-eight hours,"’ he thought, bit- 
terly. 

And yet, with all his cynicism, there was one thing he 
must know before he took her to those two cold, polished, 
conventional women in the house. 

“ You have a very elocjuent face. Miss Trix,"" he said, 


05 


THE LITTLE LIGIIT-IIOUSE LASS. 

in a tone whose change the girl felt keenly, despite the 
fact that she had set him the example. “ Will you tell 
me what it was that so changed and clouded it a moment 
as we were drawing near The Breakers?’^ 

Trix's proud, defiant head drooped a little; yet so strong 
was Carew’s influence over her in these first moments of 
its recognition that she never thought of refusing him, 
though she would be rebellious enough, defiant enough in 
the future. Trix was no lachrymose lass to “ wear her 
heart upon her sleeve. There must be a hard struggle 
between her and love before she would ever yield to its 
torTuring power. 

“ I was thinkiug,^^ she said, lowly, “ of Valerie and 
Mrs. Dyncourt. We had some words this morning — 
Carew bit his lip in suppressed amusement as he re- 
membered “ the words and— and I said some horrid 
things to them. My abominable temper, you know. And 
if they woiiT make it up with me, I — I — shall be — 
wretched; I have been miserable about it all day.^^ 

There was a catch of her breath, a half sob; and, though 
her small, haughty head was turned away, Carew had 
already gained enough knowledge of her nature to be sure 
that two great salt drops were making their slow progress 
down her cheeks. 

‘ With a sudden hot fire in his eyes, he abandoned him- 
seli for the moment to feasting his glance upon that per- 
fect, sylph-like figure. Even her dress was the perfection 
of careless grace, notwithstanding that there was a distinct 
rent in one sleeve of her gown, through which gleamed the 
ivory-white polished surface of her rounded, babyish arm. 


96 THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 

Under his sweeping blonde beard a passionate convul- 
sion seized Carew^s lips. What would he not give to be 
able to press them to that spot of satin-smooth flesh that 
for the time being converted him into a second Tantalus! 

“ Come on/^ he said, abruptly, almost roughly. “ I 
will take you to the house. 

Whatever had been Trix's mood a moment ago, she 
wheeled around upon him now with a lively, healthy in- 
dignation sparkling in her eyes at his inexplicable grufl- 
ness. 

“ If my explanation was wearisome, you must remem- 
ber that you asked for it!^’ she cried, hotly. “ Besides, it 
was the only story I could think of. I hope you donT 
fancy for a moment that 1 told you the truth about it?^^ 

As. Carew* looked down at the bristling, scornful little 
figure, a portion of the angry self-contempt vanished from 
his countenance. 

“ Little sinner! Where do you expect to go to?^^ he 
exclaimed, with a laugh. 

At that inopportune moment, while the two stood there 
so close together, suddenly on the other side of the fluted, 
slender bars of the great gates appeared Paula and Valerie 
Dyncourt. 

CHAPTER XL 

As Valerie’s quick eye took in the two people standing 
so lover-like in the moonlight, a sharp swift pain darted 
through her really delicate heart, and into her face came a 
deadly gleam that reminded one of the dangerous race 
from which she sprung. 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


97 


Perhaps if she had never loved, those dark, hereditary 
traits slumbering in her character might have never awak- 
ened to do desperate work against the innocent object of 
her jealousy. 

But the passion that had sprung up in her soul for Felix 
Carew had aroused her fiercest animosity; and in a look of 
hatred her eyes, hot and angry as one would never think 
their pale-blue prettiness could ever assume, fastened 
upon the face of Trix, which had grown eager and peni- 
tent at sight of her life-long friend. 

“ Heaven help me! how long have they been together?^^ 
was the first thought that darted through Valerie's 
whirling brain. “ All the afternoon, no doubt; and I — 
here alone I have been waiting and watching for him, 
counting the moments until he would come; and he — he 
has been beside her all the while; he has been looking 
down into her face with that look in his eyes that I saw in 
them when we came so suddenly upon them a moment 
ago!'' 

At this torturing thought her narrow breast rose and 
fell rapidly under the soft, costly lace adorning it; her 
breath broke from her thin lips in sharp spasms, and her 
hands, gleaming with their costly old jewels, clinched 
tightly upon the iron bars of the gate, which a moment 
after Carew opened to admit Trix and himself. 

Once this outward barrier was removed, Trix proceeded 
to fling herself upon the silent Valerie, and wretched, 
penitent and forlorn, begged for pardon. 

“1 sha'n't sleep~l— I—shall kill myself!" she cried, 
with a mournful sound, “ unless you say this instant that 

4 


98 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


you have forgiven me. And you, Mrs. Dyncourt, can you 
find it in your heart to do the same?’^ turning her large 
eyes, swimming in tears, upon that lady. “ It it has 
almost broken my heart to think that I spoke to you as I 
did. I don^t know whatever I could have been thinking 
of to have spoken so.^^ 

Mournful and sincere, the little figure of the culprit, 
half buried in the sweeping flood of her loosened, glisten- 
ing hair, stood before the tall and stately ladies to whom 
her heart went out in its old loyal passion of tenderness, 
and, noticing the darkening of the fair widow’s counte- 
nance, she wondered in dismay what on earth she could 
have said to have occasioned it. 

Secretly convulsed at poor Trix’s apology, and the in- 
voluntary grinding of Paula’s teeth that had received it, 
Carew stood and looked at the two girls. 

Valerie, tall, fair, cool; Trix, slight, dark, all fire and 
passion. And he made the fatal mistake of deciding that 
a man’s happiness would be safer with Valerie, that 
strong, almost sorceress-like as were Trix’s powers of 
fascination, there were depths and passion in her soul that 
might shipwreck a life linked in love to hers. 

How could he dream that the fair, high-bred girl, to 
whom her beautiful arms were clinging in a passion of 
affection, had inborn in her the ruthlessness of a savage 
and the spirit of a murderess? 

But Valerie now regained sufficient CQptrol of her emo- 
tions to assume a conventional aspect, only her eyes still 
held that unhealthy, dangerous glitter. 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


99 


With a graceful gesture she raised one hand and laid it 
upon Trix^’s dusky head. 

“You silly little madcap! It is all past; say no more 
about it. In fact, I have never thought of it since,^^ she 
said, lightly. 

There was an easy grace and apparent sincerity in Vale- 
rie’s manner that could not but impress Carew. 

“ How lady-like and well-bred she is! How elegant and 
graceful her toilet!” he thought, and yet with a strange 
perversity his glance strayed from the tall form in its trail- 
ing, azure robes to that little tumbled, gypsy-like figure 
with its splendid face of fiery eagerness and its eyes like 
glowing suns, and its white arm gleaming, soft and warm, 
through the torn sleeve; and as he did so* Herrick’s lines 
rose to his lips, and he almost uttered them aloud, so 
apropos were they to that little, dark, fiery thing stiU 
clinging passionately to Valerie: 

. “ A careless shoe-string, in whose tie 
I see a wild civility, 

Doth more bewitch me than when art 
Is too precise in ever}'- part. ” ^ 

Just SO did Carew feel, despite his prejudice for Trix, 
for he was prejudiced against her from no cause save that 
her seductive loveliness had kindled a fire in his bosomi 
that threatened to make havoc with the icy barrier that 
for ten years he had been carefully building up about it. 

But the party now began moving toward the house, 
Trix, half wild with joy at the reconciliation, running on 
ahead, little snatches of song bursting from her lips, for 
she was still too much of a child to think of hiding her in- 


100 THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 

nocent joy under the mask of conventional decorum, and 
her whole appearance instinct with a witching brilliance 
that fanned into a stronger and more dangerous flame that 
Satanic hatred burning at Valerie’s heart. 

AVhen the beautiful mansion was gained, Trix, with all 
her childish abandon, flung herself in a hammock strung 
across the veranda, while the others seated themselves in 
rustic chairs near by. 

The conversation turned upon the recent disastrous 
shading of the light-house lamp, which was creating such 
-excitement throughout the country. 

“It is altogether most mysterious I” Carew exclaimed, 
knitting his handsome brows. “ The rascal, whoever he 
was, must have* had designs against somer of the pas- 
sengers, and took those means of trying to flnish off his 
Mte noire. He must have been pretty well posted as to 
the hour he might look for the steamer to pass down the 
coast, for both Miss Trix and Captain Vorn are positive 
that tTie light wasn’t darkened over a couple of hours. ” 

“Weren’t you awfully frightened, Trix?” drawled 
Valerie’s higli-bred, rather thin voice. 

“ Kot for myself, but for the ships that might be pass- ' 
ing. I — I — thought I should die of fear and pity for 
them,” answered Trix. 

“ Trix is one of those particularly — er — masculine nat- 
ures that fear nothing,” observed Valerie, with a covert 
sneer. 

Eeluctantly, and as if obeying a resistless power, Carew 
turned his glance in the direction of the hammock. Trix’s 
face, with its weird brown splendor, was propped upon 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


101 


one hand, while the girl’s eyes glittered in the moonlight 
with the excitement that any reference to the light-house 
affair always aroused. 

“ Is that so, Miss Trix?” he inquired in half-lazy 
irony. “ Can you indeed boast that you are exempted 
from all cowardice?” 

“ Well, not exactly,” rejoined that young lady some- 
what shamefacedly. “ It is a fact I am not afraid of 
much that is earthly; but I am^terribly afraid of ghosts.” 

; At this naive confession Carew burst into a roar of 
laughter. 

“ It is a fact,” observed Valerie, with contemptuous 
superciliousness that she could not wholly repress. “ Trix 
is notably afraid of death and ‘ spirits.’ ” 

. “Of course it is ' a fact,”’ retorted Trix,' her dainty 
head lifted a degree higher, as she sprung out of the ham- 
mock and flung herself upon the steps in a half-sitting, 
half-crouching posture that so well accorded with her lit- 
tle panther-like loveliness. 

“ If it is a disgrace, I can’t help it. I am superstitious, 
and so there is an end to it. All sailors are superstitious.” 

The smile upon Carew’s handsome, bearded lips broad- 
ened. 

“How long since you have poised for the ‘Ancient 
Mariner,’ Miss Vorn?” he inquired. 

Trix’s nose took on a particularly scornful little tilt, as 
adorable as it was exasperating, Carew told himself, and 
her large, lustrous eyes turned defiantly upon that gentle- 
man. She disliked being laughed at, and she was well 
aware that he was laughing at her. 


102 


THE LITTLE 'LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


“ I pose for nothing/" she answered, brusquely. “ But 
as ten years of my life were spent on the ocean, and as 1 
visited almost every country in that time, I know a little 
something of what I am talking."" 

“You must be indeed a thorough sailor,"" observed 
Carew, in surprise. Then he added: “ That accounts for 
your courage, your self-possession, and — your supersti- 
tion,"" a little of the irony and the self-contempt vanish- 
ing from the smile that, however, still lingered upon his 
lips. 

A slight shiver swept over Trix. 

“ Ah,"" she said, “ if you could sit on a schooner"s deck 
of a night like this, with not a thing in sight but the 
water, and hear the sailors spinning yarns of phantom 
ships, and ghostly lights, and headless figures coming to 
them across the seas, and rattling skeletons rising out of 
the billows, you might be afraid, too. And then, too, the 
waves have swallowed up so many lives that it does not 
seem unlikely to us, who have lived upon them, that some 
of the spirits might come back and sigh and sob after 
those lost lives. "" 

And there was a little pathetic cadence in the sweet 
voice now. 

Valerie sat as still as marble, but her eyes, burning with 
their fierce fires, were fixed upon Trix, looking lovelier 
than ever in that softened, mournful shade that briefly 
veiled their brilliance as thoughts of her lost parents flitted 
through her brain. Carew himself was regarding Trix 
with an intensity t«hat, for the moment, made him ob- 
livious to the rest of his companions. 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


103 


“There is one room in this house into which 1 would 
not go if the wealth of the Vanderbilts awaited me on the 
other side of the door/^ continued Captain Vorn's first 

mate with a shudder. 

♦ 

“ Miss Valerie, have you, then, such a chamber of hor- 
rors in this very charming home of yours?’^ observed 
Carew, arousing himself and turning rather hastily to 
Valerie. 

“ Trix refers to an apartment in the house called the 
‘ strong-room,^ replied Valerie, with a strong hand sub- 
duing all outward appearance of that burning jealousy and 
rage feeding at her vitals. “ Perhaps you do not know 
that The Breakers has been the home of our family since 
long before the Kevolutionary War. In recent years it has 
been repeatedly repaired and modernized, and has had new 
wings' kidded to it, but the central portion is the old orig- 
inal homestead. When the first Dyncourt came to Ameri- 
ca, he brought with him from England very valuable jew- 
elry and plate. To insure this against the robbers and 
freebooters that then infested the coast, a room for it, was 
built in the house, he was then erecting — this one — in 
which all the valuables of the family have since been kept. 
It is this room that inspires Trix with such deadly hor- 
ror,^^ concluded Valer.e, with a light laugh. 

But her glance was cold - and evil, and boded no good to 
Trix, who was crouching upon the veranda steps. That 
little figure turned cold and still and pale at the very idea 
of this apartment which, to her, was more terrible than 
the ancient Chamber of Inquisition. 

“It is very peculiarly constructed,^^ went on Valerie, 


104 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


experiencing a malignant delight in watching Trix’s hor- 
ror, which increased with every word she uttered. 

So vindictive was her hatred that the power to inflict 
even such puerile torment as this upon her rival was^a 
source of savage enjoyment to her imbittered soul. 

“ The walls are of solid masonry, over two feet thick, 
and circular in shape. The doors are of heavy iron, so 
that a person once shut away in it might scream himself 
hoarse without being heard. To keep even his household 
from undue familiarity with this room, my ancestor con- 
ceived the idea of stationing a mounted skeleton within a 
closet built for that purpose. Then, to insure the place 
gaining the reputation of being haunted, he, upon several 
occasions in his life, sent servants to the chamber, he hav- 
ing previously opened the door of the closet. The poor 
fellows being thus confronted with the horrible apparition, 
fled for their lives, and, of course, reported the circum- 
stances to every one with whom they came in contact. 
This served my grandfather’s ends. The skeleton must 
havp gone through some process for it is still almost in- 
tact. Now, Mr. Carew, you have the history of the 
‘strong-room.’ Can you see anything in it to bleach 
Trix’s face as it is now?” 

With a slow, peculiar smile, Valerie’s light-blue eyes 
dwelt upon Trix’s countenance, out* of which, in good 
truth, all the soft, rich coloring had fled, showing how 
passing strong in her was that fear of the uncanny roused 
by early association with one of the most superstitious 
classes in the world — the sailor. 

“ I know 1 am a perfect simpleton,” murmured Trix, 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


105 


smiling wanly, “ but it turns me ill to think of that room. 
See, Mr. Carew, how cold my hand is with even talking of 
it. And, with tlje innocent unconsciousness of a child, 
Trix lifted her five trembling, berry-brown fingers for the 
inspection of the gentleman, who chanced to be nearest her. 

As Carew's palm for an instant closed upon her hand, 
which was indeed cold as a lump of ice, Valerie, who was 
watching the couple with tlie glance of a basilisk, saw that 
hot fire leap into his eyes that had been in them a few mo- 
ments ago, when she came upon him and Trix standing by 
the great gates. 

“ Jealous as pagans — blood-thirsty as savages!’^ Some 
subtle voice seemed to whisper the frightful old tradition 
through all Valerie^s soul. “ I ivould do it — I would! It 
is not my fault, but the fault of those men from whom, 
through generations, my nature has come down to me,^'’ 
she thought, while her teeth crushed hard together. “ If 
1 could by any means, I would shut Trix up in that room 
and leave her there overnight. She would either be dead 
or a raving maniac by morning. In either case, she would 
be out of my way. How white and shaken the little silly 
is from even talking about it! There is not a shadow of 
doubt, twelve hours in the strong-room would kill her or 
drive her mad! Oh, my God! if I only could. I shall die 
if I have to stand passively by and see him look into her 
eyes like that. Oh, Felix!— my king! my beloved!— if you 
knew 'how I worship you, I think you would let that 
wretched girl alone, enchanting sorceress though she is!'" 

She rose hurriedly and entered the house, without so 
much as a nod of excuse. 


106 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


Her diabolical resolution was taken. By some means 
Trix should be shut up within those walls, which, to the 
girl’s highly strung, emotional temperament, would indeed 
be sufficient to precipitate one of those two calamities that 
the awakened evil in Valerie’s nature so fervently desired. 

AVith noiseless steps she stdle down the broad, marble- 
tiled floor of the central hall, until she came to a narrower 
one branching off it. 

This was afforded a certain air of secrecy by being shut 
off by curtains of heavy antique drapery. 

Half-way down, she came to a narrow, deep-set door. 
Here she paused, and taking down a huge key which hung 
on a nail in the wall — for the present generation of Dyn- 
courts kept no valuables in the strong-room — she unlocked 
the heavy iron door. 

It required all her force to push open the massive slab 
of iron, and when she had succeeded, a damp, musty 
smell, as from a sepulcher, made her shudder. 

Yet, she was by no means afraid of the place; it was 
only the day before that she had shown St. Clair through 
the famous old room. 

But now the horrible purpose that her demon’s heart 
had conceived sent a guilty nervousness over her, to which 
alone can be ascribed the fact that Valerie now was struck 
by nothing unusual about the strong-room. 

And yet, almost any one else must have noticed that 
quick, carefully repressed, yet sharp sound near her in the 
darkness of this weird, mysterious place. The sound is 
that of one breathing. There is also a peculiar odor 


THE LITTLE ^LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


107 


blending with the moistness of the atmosphere that is 
emitted by a recently extinguished lantern. 

Leaving the door wide open, she turned and hurried 
back to the piazza. Here she approached Trix. 

“ Oh, Trix! 1 have just found the black cat^s kittens,^^ 
she exclaimed, with cleverly feigned enthusiasm. 

At this weighty information, Trix springs up, breathless 
wdth delight, her lovely face flushing and dimpling, her 
large eyes eager and luminous as stars; for the problem as 
to where the black cat had deposited her progeny was one 
that Trix — who loved all animals as she loved her life — 
had for many days been trying to solve. 

“No! Eeally? How delightful! Whereabouts are they?^^ 
she gasped. 

“ In the picture-gallery.^^ 

But Valerie had scarcely finished her black lie, before 
Trix was off like the wind, down the central grand hall, 
and into the narrow branch, in her eagerness forgetting 
that the door of the strong-room must be passed to gain 
the picture-gallery. 

But fleet as was her steps, Valerie for once kept pace 
with her; and as they came abreast the open iron door, 
still unnoticed by Trix, Valerie laid her hand sharply on 
her shoulder. 

Surprised, Trix paused and looked at her. In the dim 
light she could not see the fierce, sinister light burning in 
her companion's eyes, and utterly unconscious of the fiend- 
ish plot against her, she stood there unwarned and power- 
less, even at that instant when Valerie was gathering 


108 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


herself together for that tigerish spring that was to precipi- 
tate her amid the dread horrors of the strong-room. 


- CHAPTER XII. 

One instant, and in the next Valerie had flung herself 
upon Trix, had pushed her through the aperture, and 
closed and locked the door. She then took out the key 
and hung it in its place. 

The suddenness of the deed had briefly stupefied Trix. 
What on earth was the matter with Val? What did she 
mean by such actions? 

She put out her hands gropingly. She felt the cold 
slimy wall, and inhaled the damp, close atmosphere; and 
then the. chill of a great horror swept over her. Great 
Heaven! could it be that Valerie had shut her in the 
“ strong-room ^’? 

Oh! surely she had not. She could not be so cruel as 
to play such a trick upon her, much as she ridiculed her 
weakness and superstition. 

Almost sufiocated with strong agitation, she now turned 
slowly, vaguely to see gleaming through this horrid dark- 
ness the fiery, hideous figure of the famous skeleton. 

By some trick of the old nabob, or his assistants, years 
ago the bones had been coated with a sulphurous prepara- 
tion, which made them visible in the darkness, though the 
old-time brilliancy was gone. 

As this hideous apparition greeted Trix a strong convul- 
sion shook her figure, and lifting her half-paralyzed hands, 
she covered her starting eyes, and uttered a shriek of 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


109 


deadly terror. After that shriek the poor girl seemed de- 
prived of all life. She stood there, her form rigid as 
death. 

How long a time had thus passed she never knew, when 
suddenly a sound broke upon her half -palsied senses that 
seemed to possess an unnatural keenness. 

With leaden heaviness her hands fell to her side, and her 
starting eyes, glaring with terror, fasteniBd again upon the 
grinning skeleton that through the slow years of a century 
had kept solitary watch over the wealth stowed away in 
the old “ strong-room.^^ , 

Again the sound came. This time she knew it was pro- 
duced by a moving body. It drew nearer until steps were 
distinctly heard. 

She put out before her her little clay- cold hands, shak- 
ing like wind-tossed leaves, to ward off the skeleton which 
she firmly believed was advancing upon her, and again a 
shriek broke from her lips, and in a shuddering, gasping 
heap she- dropped to the stone floor. 

“ I say, stop that row; you’re all right, you know — 
there is no danger,” suddenly exclaimed a very human 
voice, and in the next instant a light flashed out to reveal 
Arrnand St. Clair with a lantern in his hand standing 
above the half-dead girl. 

“ Mr. St. Clair,” broke in a shuddering, gasping whis- 
per from her livid lips, “ save me— take me away.” 

There was still enough life left in Trix for her to scram- 
ble totteringly to her feet and fling herself upon St. Clair. 
Some subtle, sudden thought triumphed over the natural 


110 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


surprise the man experienced at finding Trix there, and a 
strange, malicious fire shone in his countenance. 

“ Ah,^^ he** breathed, in an intense voice, “ so there is 
something that can stagger your proud defiance and put 
your leonine courage to flight!’^ 

“ I — 1 — shall die if 1 stay in here,’^ shuddered Trix, 
shrinking up with all her force against her companion. 

“Ah, so it is -that very uncomfortable person over in 
the corner that has so alarmed you,^' he observed, lightly. 
“ Well, it is just a trifle odd that if .you have such a hor- 
ror of him what you are doing shut up in here with his 
ghostly majesty.^’ 

“We were talking out there about the ‘ strong-room,^ 
shivered Trix, still crouching up to St. Clair as though 
afraid he might vanish as suddenly as he came and leave 
her alone amid the grisly horrors of this awful place, 
“ and 1 fancy Valerie got the idea of shutting me up in 
here for a joke. But it was a wicked, cruel thing to do. 
I think in another moment I should have died if. you had 
not come. 

“You do look cut up,^^ observed St. Clair, viewing with 
scant sympathy — indeed, one would think with almost a 
gloating enjoyment — the little pinched face of frozen hor- 
ror and small, shivering, exquisite figure of his companion. 

“ Here, take a pull>at this; it will straighten you up.^^ 

But Trix drew away, with disgust from the flask that he 
had thrust under her nose. 

“ Ko, thank you. Shall we be^ble to get out of here? 
I think Valerie has locked the door,^^ she said, anxiously. 

“ 1 imagine there will be no trouble about that,"" re- 


THE LITTLE* LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


Ill 


pll^ St. Clair. “ I have in my pocket the duplicate key* 
thatM borrowed this morning from Mrs. Dyncourt, and 
with which I entered. Valerie and I went through this 
uncommonly grewsome old pi ac^ yesterday, and while here 
1 fancy I must have lost a piece of jewelry, as I have 
missed it since then.'’^ He paused, and with an angrily 
anxious look those soft, fierce, fickle eyes of his roamed 
around the stone floor on which mildew and rank moisture 
disputed ..for possession. 

“ I have said nothing of my loss to any one save Paula,^^ 
he continued, his expression still bitterly impatient but 
solicitous. “ If I had told the rest of them it might have - 
got out among the servants, and I don^t trust a servant 
further than 1 can see him. So I came here aloije on a 
solitary search for my property. But the thing is of no 
consequence; it doesnH in -the least signify.'^ 

To a more discerning reader of human nature it might 
have occurred that there was a particulaidy pronounced air 
of insincerity about the speaker; that if he had indeed met 
with the loss he claimed the article possessed a value and a 
sififnificance for him that the forced carelessness of his 


manner totally belied. 

But Trix was in too weakened and agitated a condition 
to notice anything just then, although days afterward the 
circumstance returned to her with a peculiar interest. 

Neither was she now impressed by the somewhat singu- 
lar fact of St. Clair’s having kept his presence in the 
“ strong-room ” secret from Valerie. 

Meanwhile that young lady, after her dastardly deed, 
rushed back to the piazza and joined Carew. 


11 T3.E LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 

At her approach he looked quickly up, aud, despite his 
confidence in Miss Dyncourt’s superiority over Trix in 
point of personal merit, a quick shadow crossed his coun- 
tenance when he perceived that the latter had not re- 
turned. 

But he gave no outward token of his sentiments, and 
conversation was resumed. 

Some time thus passed, and then, when he cursed him- 
self for a fool for yielding to that vague disquiet that had 
seized him at Trix’s absence, he turned'to Valerie. 

“"The black cat^s family must embrace some feline 
prodigies, judging by the length of Miss Trix^s visit to 
them/’ he said, with an air of seeming indifference. 
“ Suppose you take me to the picture-gallery and secure 
the benefit of my opinion of this new collection.” 

Keluctantly Valerie rose and acted upon the suggestion. 

But the picture-gallery, upon opening its broad white 
doors, was found to be dark and deserted. Only the 
moonlight sweeping in at the mullioned windows lighted 
with a weirdly picturesque effect the white, still faces of 
the priceless statuary and the splendor of old paintings 
lining the walls. 

“ Where — where can she be?” exclaimed Valerie, in 
well-simulated surprise. “ 1 left her with the kittens, and 
she said she would be back with us in a few moments. 1 
wanted to stay with her, but she wouldn’t permit it. 
There is no accounting for a changeful, erratic tempera- 
ment like Trix’s. She doesn’t know her mind five min- 
utes.” 

For a man that had made up his mind to the changeable 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


113 


di^osition of the individual under discussion, Carew 
seemM to develop a profound interest in that last observa- 
tion. He turned around abruptly upon Valerie, and his 
cool handsome gray eyes held an almost boyish eagerness. 

“ 1 know that she is volatile and mercurial, he said, 
lowly, “ but I have thought that possibly this did not 
affect her powers of loving. Has she, then, no stability 
of affection?^^ 

One of those phases that so baffled and mystified Valerie 
M^as now over Oarew. At one time he would treat Trix 
and all matters pertaining to her with a kind of scorn and 
amusement that was like balm to Valerie’s jealous soul; at 
others, through the polished indifference of his manner, 
would crop up a tinge of passionate interest and suppressed 
admiration of her rival, such as the present, that im- 
pressed upon her the tortures of Tantalus. 

But this was no time to give way to her jealous misery. 
Suppressing all evidence of her bitter pain, she turned to 
Felix with a light laugh. 

“ She is a perfect little Mormon so far as her capacity 
for loving is concerned,” she said, uttering her black lie 
with every evidence of amused truth. “ She is in love 
with everybody: the parson, the doctor, ‘ the tinker and 
the baker and, the candle-stick maker ’—all of them Trix’s 
heart takes in. She’s a sad fiirt, little wretch; but then 
she’s so pretty and so young she’ll grow out of it in time.” 

“ Never!” Carew uttered the stern denial unconscious 
of the depth of feeling in his manner, and a look of bitter 
feeling stamped that portion of his handsome face uncon- 
cealed by his tawny beard. 


114 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


No kindly voice whispered to him that this story was a 
vile calumny, owing its source to Valerie’s jealousy. No 
hint came to him that Trix’s fearless soul was as white and 
her mind as far removed from the thought of love and 
lovers as a vestal virgin. 

“ ‘ AVhat is bred in the bone will come out of the 
flesh.’ That is a trite, homely old saw, but it is a very 
true one. Miss Valerie. God! what a man’s life must be 
tied to a torturing, fickle, maddening thing like that child.” 

The last words escaped him almost involuntarily under 
the savage rage and self-cOntempt consuming him. 

But before more could be said the door of the strong- 
room, which was now but a little way in advance of 
them, swung slowly open, and out into the hall stepped 
Trix and St. Clair. 

Valerie paused as if turned to stone, and gazed upon 
them with unspeakable horror. Then she fell a-trem- 
bling; her limbs almost gave way beneath her, as she saw 
the yawning pit of disgrace and exposure upon whose 
brink she stood. 

Great heavens! if it should become known that she had 
fastened Trix in the strong-room Carew would turn from 
her in disgust and loathing. 

She did not, in this first fear of exposure that had seized 
her, attempt to solve the mystery of her victim’s escape or 
of St. Clair’s being with her. 

All she wanted was to get Trix away before anything 
definite should be revealed. 

As she saw her false friend, Trix, still white as death, 
and with her eyes burning like balls of fire, and her beau- 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


115 


tiful lips quivering with outraged passion, confronted the 
traitress. 

“ You wicked, cruel, inhuman monster,’^ she cried, 
passionately. “ How could you. find it in your heart to 
play me such a trick as to -shut mein there? Oh, Val, 
hateful as we liave been to each other, this is the worst 
thing you ever did to me.^' 

Shivering with terror, and scarcely conscious of what 
she did, Valerie seized Trix by the arm and dragged her 
back to the picture-gallery. 

Here, when she had closed and locked the doors, she 
turned to her outraged companion. 

“ Did I frighten you so?^^ she managed to articulate, 
making a mighty effort to regain her self-possession. 
“ Ihn sorry, Trix; it was only a joke. I didnT mean any 
harm.^^ 

“ A joke!^^ cried Trix, furiously. “ It — it — was nearer 
death to me.^^ 

“ Oh, I am so sorry! WonT you forgive me, dear?” 
cried Valerie, fawning upon the little bristling figure of 
her liberated victim. “ It was cruelly thoughtless of me, 
and I was going to release you just as the door opened and 
you escaped. Trix— dear Trix, you won’t be angry with 
me, although I so justly merit it; you will try and forgive 
me, won’t you? I have forgiven you many things.” ' , 

Full well did the artful murderess — for in the sight of 
Heaven Valerie was one— know how to touch Trix’s pas- 
sionate, undisciplined, yet faithful heart. 

Tears and penitence could have secured Trix’s pardon 
for almost any offense. ^ 


IIG THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 

Moreover, in the present instance, according to her 
lights, no heavier charge than that of thoughtless sport 
and trickery could he laid at Valerie^s door. In her love 
and confidence, if the stupendous truth of her hideous 
purpose in shutting her in the strong-room could have 
been revealed to Trix on a heavenly scroll, she could 
scarcely have accepted it, so utterly incapable of doubt and 
suspicion was she where she loved. 

“ It was very, very cruel of you, Val,^’ she murmured, 
tears of injured feeling rising to her eyes now that wrath 
had subsided. 

But she returned the Judas kisses pressed upon her cold 
cheek, and with a thrill of exultation Valerie knew that 
peace had come between them, and that her great peril 
was almost tided over. 

“It was cruel, so cruel that I am ashamed of it,^^ mur- 
mured Valerie, in a voice seemingly choked with tears, 
while she buried her face in her hands. 

“ Oh, Trix, it would kill me to have any one know of 
it. Dear, darling Trix, wonT you promise me to always 
hide the truth? !Never — never — tell it to any one.^^ 

Trix regarded her companion somewhat doubtfully. 
Valerie stood tall and slender and with bent head in the 
ghostly moonlight filling the gallery with flickering lights 
and shadows. A more incredulous and suspicious mind 
than Captain Vorh's first mate would have had difficulty 
in realiziug the murderous passions even then running rife 
in her bosom. 

“ But how shall I account for being in there?^^ said the 
puzzled Trix. 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


117 


“ Say tl;at you went in of your own accord to try and 
overcome your foolish fears/^ answered Valerie, raising 
her head eagerly. 

“ But Mr. St. Clair was in there searching for some- 
thing he had lost when you pushed me in. He knows 
that I didnH go in voluntarily.^^ 

A cry of dismay broke from Valerie; until this moment 
she had forgotten St. Clair. She looked so wan and 
frightened, even despairing, that Trix^s tender heart in- 
stantly set about concocting some plan of helping her. 

“ The only way that I can see is for you to tell Mr. St. 
Clair the truth and ask him to say nothing about it. You 
may tell him that I shall be as quiet about it.^^ 

It was the only sensible plan, and Valerie accepted it. 

Feeling worn out with her recent horrible experience, 
Trix bid her friend (?) good-night, and opening one of the 
windows vaulted lightly in it, and lowering herself to the 
ground, scurried off toward the bay to i*eturn home. 

Left behind, Valerie closed and locked the window, then 
hurried away to the more central portion of the mansion. 

So far as Trix was concerned her guilty deed was safe. 
She had promised, and Valerie knew that forty horses 
could scarcely have dragged the truth from her loyal soul. 

- Now to see what could be done with St. Clair. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

As the two girls disappeared, Felix Carew, too much sur- 
prised for any other emotion for the moment, had turned 
wonderingly to St. Clair. 


118 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


That gentleman broke into his silvery laugh. ^ 

“You look astounded/’ he observed, lightly. “My 
dear boy, are my age and appearance then so incongruous 
to tender escapades that I may not show a very charming 
young lady a very mysterious room by moonlight?” 

Carew straightened himself, a smile came upon his lips, 
his manner was as cordial as ever. No one but the astute 
St. Clair, with his almost diabolical sagacity, could have 
detected that cold, bitter gleam afar back in Felix’s calm 
eyes. 

He knew that Carew believed that unmaidenly forward- 
ness had taken Trix with him into the strong-room. 

“ I know of no one so fitted for the occupation,” replied 
Felix, with a careless laugh, as he passed on. 

St. Clair remained behind, glancing in a sort of amused 
curiosity at the closed doors of the picture-gallery. 

He possessed that cruel, derisive, uns5"mpathetic tem- 
perament that found amusement in every weakness and 
passion of human nature; and that one of the fiercest of 
those passions had had something to do with the pushing 
of Trix into the strong-room he was pretty well con- 
vinced. 

At that moment Valerie appeared, walking hastily to- 
ward him. 

“ Mr. St. Clair,” she exclaimed, in a low, agitated 
voice. “You must think very strange of what has 
passed. Let me explain. ” 

“ My dear girl,” interrupted St. Clair’s cynical, sweet 
voice, “ I am hopelessly dense. I never could under- 
stand explanations- Postpone yours. At present my poor 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 119 

brain is wholly given over as to what took Miss Vorn in 
here — motioning slightly toward the frowning iron door 
— “ but 1 haven’t the wildest idea, and I’ve no desire to 
have.” 

As Valerie looked up into those soft yet wonderfully 
shrewd eyes she read his veiled meaning. 

He knew that she had pushed Trix through the door — 
that she had had some deadly purpose in so doing — yet not 
desiring to share her secret, he wished to avoid an ex- 
planation. ^ 

With a heart swelling with exultation, Valerie passed on 
to finish her devil’s work and find Carew. 

She came upon him standing upon the piazza, leaning 
against one of the fluted columns, smoking a cigar. 

As Valerie approached he tossed away the weed, and his 
countenance cleared of the morose shadow that had cloud- 
ed it. 

“ Poor little Trix, she has run off home,” began the 
young lady at once, with an amused laugh that was the 
perfection of acting. She is always up to some escapade 
or another. And sometimes the minx is not overparticu- 
lar as to veracity. For instance: Mr. St. Clair tells me 
that she went into the strong-room voluntarily. ” 

“ But her fear of the place — her superstitions?” ex- 
claimed Carew, like one stung out of his self-possession. 

Valerie laughed and shrugged her graceful shoulders. 

“You must not always 'take Trix’s words as literal 
facts,” she said. “ So has the little rogue- at different 
times in her life been afraid (?) of the moon, the very sea 
that she boasts of loving and having lived upon. She is 


120 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


an endless source of amusement — the drollest child one 
almost ever came across. But I don^t half fancy the 
imp's attempting to throw this business upon my shoul- 
ders by making you believe that I was responsible for her 
being in the strong-room.'' 

An expression of indifference stamped Carew's haughty, 
blonde visage. 

“ What a little liar— -what a mass of duplicity and arti- 
fice the girl must be," he was telling, himself, “ to practice 
such deep deceit in so trifliug and unnecessary a matter." 

Well, it was nothing to him — it was no more than he 
had expected. So let the thing drop. 

The remainder of the evening his manner to Valerie was 
marked with polished attention and courtesy, and the 
heart of the schemer rose high with elation. 

So faithfully did Trix keep Valerie’s secret that she 
made no mention of it even to her beloved captain, though 
that good man pressed her sore to know the cause of her 
pallid looks and lagging steps the following day. 

For some days after that Trix saw nothing of the ladies 
of The Breakers. Fresh company had arrived from New 
York, which presumably confined them, while the sudden 
relapse of that mysterious bird of passage called June, 
now being sheltered under the light-keeper's roof, kept 
Trix in close attendance upon the invalid. 

But on the morning of the long looked-for yachting 
party, J une had so far recovered as to make it possible for 
her young nurse to be in attendance upon the day's fes- 
tivities. 

Valerie, not yet daring to show her hatred, had sent a 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


m 


footman with a note to Trix the night before, assuring her 
in the most cordial terms that she would expect her to 
meet the party at the designated hour and spot upon the 
beach, for the stately Dyncourt yacht disdained the bay 
and always took her pleasure-parties outside, and so there 
was no flaw in Trix^s happiness. 

Yet, stop! there was a thorn to her rose of pleasure — 
that old question that since the world began has caused 
more suffering than death to feminine hearts now inflicted 
its gnat-like , sting to the young soul of Captain Vorii^s 
first mate — what should she wear? 

“ If I could only play Eve and make me a dress out of 
fig-leaves I might be ‘ rich in attire/ but as it is, 1 am 
afraid 1 shall cut an awful figure among those city ladies, 
Guilda,^^ and with a half-woful, half-laughing face Trix 
looked up from where she crouched upon the floor sur- 
rounded by the scanty contents of her wardrobe. 

Upon this momentous occasion Captain Vorn had 
stumped up the stairs to have a voice in the discussion of 
so weighty a matter as to what his mate should appear in 
on board the good yacht “ White Wings. 

He noV thrust his grizzled head in at the door. 

“ Come in, come in,^^ cried Trix, “ and see if you can 
not find a magic wand to convert these very ordinary 
prints and muslins into the floating attire of a fairy, then 
I may go to the party, otherwise — 

She paused and shrugged her pretty shoulders express- 
ively. 

The old light-keeper entered, poked around among the 
simple finery with his crutch for a moment, which was 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 




sufficient to convince him of the ‘‘ giant difficulty block- 
ing his beloved^s way, and his rugged countenance grew 
thoughtful. Then he looked up, met Guilda's eyes fast- 
ened upon him, knew what was in her mind, handed her a 
key with a silent gesture that she understood, and while 
the old woman left the room he turned to Trix: 

“ A few days ago 1 told you about the dress that I 
found among the possessions left behind by that strange 
woman. As I told you then, I have been saving that for 
^your wedding-gown; but 1 see no reason why you shouldn't 
wear it to-day, and I have sent Guilda to fetch it.^' 

Almost as he spoke the woman entered the room, and, 
with her characteristic silence, handed the girl a large, 
loose package. 

“With fingers trembling with excitement, Trix removed 
the pins and wrapping. 

Then a low exclamation of delight and admiration broke 
from her as she shook out the soft, creamy folds of some 
rare foreign fabric through which gleamed faintly the 
crimson line of the heavy corded silk, which constituted 
the foundation of the exquisite bizarre costume. 

“How grand — how perfect I” gasped Trix, when she 
had somewhat recovered her breath. “ Why, in all Vale- 
rie’s wardrobes she has nothing to equal this. And it is 
made so simply yet so elegantly, just those long, rich 
folds, that it might have almost been finished yesterday. 
An hour’s work with it and not one of the fashionable 
ladies that 1 shall meet on board the ‘ White Wings ’ will 
dream but that it was got up especially for the occasion.” 

Then suddenly over the girl’s glowing face a shadow 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


123 


fell, and her radiant eyes grew soft and misty as she re- 
called who it was in all probability that had last worn this 
dainty, costly garment— her mother, poor, doomed, young 
thing, whom she had never known. 

Brian broke in upon her mournful meditation as he 
handed her a little wooden box of his own manufacture 
which had dropped from the bundle upon the floor. 

“ And here is the brooch 1 told you of,^^ he said. 

Trix laid aside the dress, which indeed was beautiful 
enough for a fairy princess, and turned her attention to 
the jewel. It was a small, costly thing of antique gold^ 
thickly studded with diamonds, with a larg^ ruby like a 
single drop of blood in the center, and on the back was 
written that magic talisman, Adfinem. 

“ Well, Uncle Brian, said Trix at last, when she was 
through admiring her treasures, “ you have, indeed, found 
the ‘ magic wand.’ Cinderella herself was scarcely decked 
out finer than 1 shall be.” 

!Not until then did Guilda step forward with her con- 
tribution, which she laid in Trix’s hand. 

“Take them,” she said, in her soft, foreign voice. 
“ Like the captain, I had intended saving them until your 
wedding-day. But you had better have them all together.” 

The present proved to be a set of bracelets, and large 
light loops for the ears, all studded with small, variegated 
stones that sent forth a million prismatic rays so brilliant 
as to be almost dazzling. Besides their intrinsic value, 
the}^ were almost priceless, because of their unique and 
foreign design, which was a slender adder with crested 
head, as if about to strike. 


134 


THE LITTLE . LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


“ 1 brought them from my own country. You are wel- 
come, beloved/’ was all Guilda replied to Trix’s boundless 
gratitude. 

Three hours jater a gay party was assembled on board 
the stately “ White Wings,” pulling hard at her anchor in 
the inlet. 

“ Why are we not off — what is keeping us, Valerie?” 
inquired one impatient young lady, stepping U 2 i to the 
young hostess at that moment. 

“ We are waiting for a little country friend of mine,” 
answered Valerie, and her smiling countenance betrayed 
no hint of that deadly hatred feeding at her vitals. “ It 
is time she were here. Ah! that is her boat now, pulling 
out from shore, 1 think.” 

With feverish, glittering eyes Valerie watched the yawl 
in which, besides the ^turdy fisherman . whom Brian had 
got to row his mate across, she could descry a little rub- 
ber-clad figure — Trix. 

“How I wish it would go down with her,” was her 
murderous thought. “ But for once she will not eclipse 
me to-day. Dress has muoli to do with an affair like this; 
for every one 'is in full dress for the dance that we are to 
end up with; and though Trix looks well enough around 
the house in her prints and little muslins, she canH liel^p 
but appear a little dowdy here.” 

Five minutes later Felix Carew had his attention - 
roused by an exclamation from his companion, a young 
New York blood, who, like himself, was leaning idly 
against the railing of the yacht. Both were some dis- 
tance from the laughing crowd. Felix glanced quickly in 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


125 


the direction his friend’s eyes had taken and saw Trix 
springing agilely upon the yacht. In the next instant she 
had shed her rubber cloak and stepped forth in all her 
weird, fantastic splendor. 

Carew’s breath quickened, and he set his teeth hard 
under his golden beard as he looked at the little creature 
standing there, the straight Greek folds of her matchless 
gown clinging to her exquisite limbs, her silken hair piled 
high at the top of her dainty head, her odd, old foreign 
jewels radiating arrows of living light, as her naked, 
rounded arms lightly clasped her guitar, and her large, 
lustrous eyes smiled joyously upon her companions, not 
one of whom but was half dazzled by her glittering splen- 
dor. Looking at her thus, who could dream that the 
shadow of dire disaster hung above her young head? 


CHAPTER XIV. 

As Trix in her sumptuous splendor stood upon the 
“ AYliite Wings’ ” decks, utterly unconscious of the 
seductive spectacle she presented in the soft sheen of her 
silk and laces, and the matchless glitter of the weird jew- 
eled serpents clasping her sculptured arms and swinging 
from her tiny pink ears, while upon her ivory breast, like 
a great flaming star, lay the diamond brooch of her dead 
' mother, not a soul present but conceded to her the palm 
of supremacy, and admitted that even there, amid tlm 
polished refinements of dress and breeding of the suave so- 
ciety ladies, the little light-house lass was pre-eminently 
' the belle. 


126 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


At first sight of her Valerie had stood as though turned 
to stone, the color slowly draining out of her face, her eyes 
growing large and dark with bewildered hatred. 

Was not that little smiling, gorgeous figure a feature of 
some hateful dream? 

Then in the next moment a hitter realization of the 
truth swept upon her, and her teeth shut hard together to 
suppress the groan that rose from her soul. 

“ Where under heaven did the creature get that outfit?^^ 
she cried in agony to herself. “ It must have cost a small 
fortune, and its equal is not on this side of the water. Oh, 
Heaven! the devil himself must help her. And 1 have 
been thinking that for once I should eclipse her — that for 
once Felix Carew should see me at an advantage. 

With this thought her burning eyes turned eagerly in 
the direction of that gentleman, to perceive that he, like 
every one else on board, was regarding Trix in a species of 
intoxicated admiration. 

Indeed, for a moment after Trix’s sudden appearance 
Carew felt the spell of her presence as he had never felt it 
before. 

Believing her to be false, fickle, frivolous, and deceitful, 
he had sedulously avoided her since the night of the 
strong-room affair, although it had not been without 
a strong exertion of his powerful will that he had thus 
shaped his course. 

Now, to his angry disgust, he discovered that the course 
had resulted only in deepening the spell that this small, 
erratic, irresistible creature seemed to hold him under. 

“ I begin to think I was under the guidance of my ‘ un- 


THE LITTLE L1C4HT-H0USE LASS. 


127 


lucky star ^ when I came North/ ^ he thought, with a half- 
bitter derisign. 

“By Heaven! Carew, who is that dazzling little creat- 
ure?’^ the lowered yet eager voice of his friend broke in 
upon his meditation. “ Ye gods! I never saw her match. 
She must be an eastern princess. ” 

“ Why, how still you are, good people !^^ cried Trix^s 
gay voice at this juncture, as her large, laughing eyes 
roamed from Valerie to Carew, the only two present that she 
knew. “ Val, you look funereal or — asleep. Here, wake 
up, you pretty sleeping princess/^ and not more sweet than 
her laugh was the strain of glad throbbing melody that her 
fingers called forth as they swept the strings of the guitar, 
which she laughingly held close to Valerie^s blonde head. 

Her voice broke the spell of silence which had held her 
companions. The gentlemen crowded forward for intro- 
ductions, and while Valerie gracefully discharged her duty 
in this line, masking her true sentiments under forced 
smiles, the crew were making ready for a start. 

Trix stood the center of a knot of eager and admiring 
gentlemen. She dispensed smiles and laughing badinage 
like a veritable siren. St. Clair, who had been engaged 
below, came on deck. 

His glance roamed idly over the gay party, then lighted 
upon Trix in her old-time foreign splendor. At sight of 
her the appearance of this reserved and mysterious man 
became changed. 

His eyes dilated with some subtle, secret emotion that 
banished every vestige of the velvety softness native to 


128 * 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


them, and invested them with the ferocious wildness of a 
startled beast of the jungle. 

The delicate olive of his dark, flawless face turned to a 
sickly livid, that extended even to his lips. He became 
like one petrified, save for the hurrying, half-choked 
respiration that turned his muscular chest for the moment 
into an unquiet, storm-tossed sea. 

Great indeed must have been the storm of emotion' 
aroused within that bosom to have so completely van- 
quished his cool egotism and half-insolent self-content that 
were such pronounced features of Armand St. Clair's bear- 
ing. Death itself could scarcely have aroused that fixed, ^ 
appalled, incredulous look of horror that now convulsed 
his dark face, beautiful even in its frightful agitation. 

In such a man, fierce, haughty-tempered, yet- polished, 
nothing but a peril greater and bitterer than death could 
have awakened a tempest of emotion equal to this that - 
now shook him as the cyclone shakes the forest tree. 

He stood for a moment longer, with his gaze fixed upon 
the girl. Then a mighty convulsion swept through all his 
lithe, panther-like limbs, and, making a strong effort, like 
one breaking from the horrid spell of some hideous night- ■ 
mare, he turned and walked to a distant point of the vessel. 

Here he stood alone, leaning against the rail, like one ill 
with a great horror. His moist brow was bared to the 
cool, soft breeze as the stately craft glided across the glis- 
tening sea. Furtively, as if drawn by a ’resistless yet hor- 
rible fascination, his glance sought Trix, with the diamond 
brooch and its single blood-red ruby glowing upon her 
breast. 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


120 


But not for long could a man like Armand St. Clair re- 
main the victim of his own emotional weakness. By the 
time the yacht was well out at sea, and the soft, summer 
air was filled with the sound of merry voices, mingled with 
the throbbing melody of Trix’s guitar, upon which that 
young lady, seated in state and surrounded by her court, 
was executing her very best performances, ^e had pulled 
himself together, to outward seeming, though Trix re- 
oeived from him a sort of icy, diabolical regard. 

All through the day he was unusually taciturn, and had 
the appearance of one whose mind was occupied by weighty 
and profound reflections. 

Carew was almost as moody, remaining forward most of 
the time, puffing hard at his cigar, or passing desultory 
remarks with the captain or his crew. 

Valerie’s falcon eye noticed more often than she was 
pleased with how his glance sought the little light-house 
maid, and she ground her teeth in hopeless misery. 

But Valerie was no fool. She easily divined the exact 
state of Carew’s feelings. 

“ He admires her. He is fascina,ted by her,” she told 
herself now, as she stood watching him; “ but my story of 
her temperament and fickle character, along with her 
childish gayety and thoughtlessness, have prejudiced 
him against her. If he could have confidence in her, if he 
could know her as she actually is, I would have no show 
at all. God help me! God pity me! for all this is driving 
me mad.^’ 

•She paused in her unhappy soliloquy, and her eyes, 
gathering a murderous glow, fastened upon the laughing 


130 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


Trix, who to all outward seeming was the gayest of the 
gay crowd. 

“ I must find some way of removing her forever from 
his path/^ she thought. “ She might have had those 
braiuless fools and couceited coxcombs, and welcome — she 
might have had all the world besides, if she had only left 
me Felix, biA she would also have him if she could — 
little flirt and hypocrite that she is. Though to-day she 
has taken up the role of leaving him severely alone, her 
every word and act are for his benefit, and when he is not 
looking I have seen how her glance goes straight to him.^' 

This latter was true; though Trix was queen of the as- 
sembly — though the fleeting moments were so replete with 
homage and triumph as to seem a portion of a fairy story 
— to Trix there was still a little sore spot away down in 
her heart. 

She resented it — she took herself soundly to task for it 
— her fingers' fiew more nimbly over the guitar strings, or 
the gay hon mots flowed more readily from her half-pout- 
ing, scarlet lips, yet all the same, through it all she was 
wondering what did keep Carew so persistently from join- 
ing the charmed circle of her admirers; and her eyes 
would occasionally seek his magnificent figure leaning idly 
against the rail for the most part. 

As Valerie was indulging in her bitter thoughts, her 
rival was making rather absent rejoinders to the young 
millionaire, who was most persevering in his attentions to 
her. 

“ Can 1 have made him angry in any way?’^ Trix was 
inquiring of herself, her glance again obliquely ..busy with 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


131 


the silent, motionless Cai*ew. ‘‘No; I can not, for 1 
have done nothing. It is my opinion he is ill-tempered 
anyhow,’^ she continued, her anger rising happily to the 
rescue. “Look at him. AVhat a scowl that is for a de- 
cent man to wear! I should say he must be a decidedly 
uncomfortable sort of person to get along with. Well, 
the high and mighty gentleman shall see that his words 
are of not the slightest consequence to me.'’’ 

And with apparent redoubled zest Captain Vorn’s first 
mate turned to her somewhat discomfited admirers, the 
clouds upon whose brows she instantly dispelled by her 
smiles. 

And no one noticed that her glittering eyes were for a 
moment a trifle misty, and her laugh held a rigidly sup- 
pressed ring. Once, as evening apiDroached, Trix broke 
away from the laughter and flirtation on deck, and stole 
below. As she entered the faultlessly appointed salon for 
a few moments’ rest and solitude, up from among the 
amber cushions of a divan rose the tall, slim figure of St. 
Clair. 

Somehow, the sight of him was more distasteful to her 
than ever it had been before, and she turned hastily to 
leave the apartment; but the gentleman, with one of those 
motions of silent, almost panther-like swiftness, stepped 
between her and the door. 

As he thus barred her way, he looked down at her with 
eyes in which that mysterious fire burned as never it had 
burned before. 

“ Do you know,” he observed, in his leisurely, slighting 
voice, “ that I believe we were born to be natural enemies. 


132 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


you betray such a decided antipathy to my society. And 
yet 1 can boast that upon one occasion I was, indeed, most 
welcome to your sight. 

“ Ytm were indeed, retorted Trix, with calm uncon- 
cern, having loug since perceived that she could in no 
other way hold her own against this man. “ And if this 
were a similar ‘ occasion,^ you might be equally welcome; 
as it is — she paused and shrugged her shoulders express- 
ively, while a sweet, mocking laugh broke from her scorn- 
ful lips. 

“ You are a droll child, yet your tongue is as sharp as a 
two-edged sword,^'’ observed St. Clair, his delicate, dark 
face like ice in its cynical derision. Well, what is it 
that you have wished to say to me? Twice to-day I have 
seen that you h^ something you believed you ought to 
communicate. 

Trix regarded him in surprise. How observant he was 
under his polished selfishness! 

“1 have;" it is a fact, she replied, somewhat taken 
aback at this evidence of her companion's secret observa- 
tion of her. “ The fact is, I think I must have found the 
piece of jewelry that you were hunting for that night in 
the strong-room. " 

At her words a change passed over St. Clair's startled 
visage, but in the next instant it grew quiet with a mask- 
like stillness. 

Trix continued: 

“A few days afterward 1 was putting on the same dress 
that I wore that night, when 1 felt something hard strike 
against my hand. I examined it and found this. It must 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


133 


have caught in a fold of my dress when 1 fell to the floor. 
Is it yours?^^ 

And she held up for inspection a small heart-shaped 
locket thickly studded with black pearls. 

It was a rare, odd piece of jewelry, that one would in- 
stantly decide to be an old souvenir or family relic. 

“ Yes, that is mine,^^ St. Clair observed, and rather 
hastily reached forward to possess himself of it. 

At that instant Trix^’s Augers, shaking slightly with the 
nervousness that proximity to St. Claires invariably 
aroused, dropped the locket. 

Before her companion had time to secure it, the girl 
stooped and picked it up. 

But the jar of falling had loosened the catch, and as she 
gathered it up the top flew up, disclosing the 'medallion- 
like interior. 

There were the usual places ^for tiny portraits. These 
latter being lacking, there was nothing at all in the medall- 
ion to attract Trix'^s. attention, until, as she was handing 
it to its owner, a slanting arrow of sunlight shot athwart 
the dull gold plates. 

Then a swift, sharp exclamation, as of pain, broke from 
her paling lips and her Angers closed tight over the hijoic. 

For there, illumined and brought into strong relief by 
the light, she saw traced the w'ell-known characters that 
marked the brooch that at that instant reposed upon her 
breast: Adfinem.^^ 

Clear and perfect and with a sudden sinister signiAcaaice 
the fateful words stared^ up at her from the open face of 


134 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


the locket, and with eyes fascinated and a strange, suffo- 
cating sensation at her throat she stared back at them. 

Then slowly she dragged her panic-stricken, half-dazed 
glance to that dark, inscrutable face above her. 

St, Clair’s velvety eyes were smiiing down at her curi- 
ously. Never had she seen them softer, brighter, so like 
wells of living light; and yet, amid it all, they seemed to 
drive the very blood from her heart. 

“I shall begin to think you a nervous child, after all. 
What is it now?” he inquired, the low, liquid measure of 
his soft laugh falling upon the silence that had suddenly 
fallen upon them. 

The man seemed to exert a sort of spell or mesmeric in- 
fluence over the girl. In his presence she always felt con- 
fused, unnatural, as if there were some great strain upon 
her nervous system. 

Now she was mystified, bewildered, her brain filled with 
whirling thoughts. She stared up at him almost breath- 
less, wondering if he knew her thoughts. 

That light, half-jeering, baffling smile curling his beau- 
tiful, satirical lips seemed to tell her that he did, that he 
was as well aware as she that those words upon which both 
of their glances were again fastened was the talisman of 
her dead parents’ love, and were, even then, engraved 
upon the brooch that she wore. 

“ You know what ails me. I see it in your eyes!” she 
cried out, in a sort of desperate vehemence. “ That sen- 
tence relates to me and my people. It is engraved upon 
some of my possessions, and you know it.” 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


135 


Again that low, mellow laugh broke from St. Clair. 
His eyes gleamed like fiery arrows. 

As the two stood there facing each other, there was a 
strange, indefinable similarity between them. 

“ My dear young lady, how impulsive and, inconsistent 
you are,^^ he murmured, and soft as was his smile, it yet 
held something sardonic in it. “How should I know 
such a thing? The words are an old Latin sentence — the 
locket 1 came across in a pawn-broker’s shop, where I had * 
accompanied my detective on one occasion to search for 
some valuable jewelry that had been stolen from me. 
But if Captain Vorn has a patent upon Ad jinem, I will 
destroy this little affair at once. ” 

As he spoke he reached over and lightly possessed him- 
self of the locket as it lay upon Trix’s hand, grown placid 
and motionless as through emotion. 

Trix stood silent, her teeth pressed hard together, her 
eyes fastened on his amused, ironical countenance. 

She scarcely knew what was in her own mind; only of a 
sudden her intense, keenly organized emotional tempera- 
ment had become afflicted by a strange influence that sent 
a chill through all her young veins. 

Beckless and unresponsible child though she was, some 
power seemed yet to tell her that there was something 
more than mere coincidence in the circumstance of the old 
talisman being found upon a piece of jewelry belonging to 
this man. 

Was that vague, mysterious influence that he exerted 
over her to be explained by the fact that he was in some 


13G 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


manner connected with her fate, and that he was to wield 
a sinister' influence over her destiny? 

Through all her slender, perfect limbs a great shudder 
ran at the awful thought, and she raised her hand to her 
dizzy head with something of St. Clair’s own gesture when 
he had first beheld her that morning. Then, amid all her 
chaotic emotion, rose a swift, flerce flame of anger, and 
her eyes flashed up at him. 

“ Let the thing drop,” she cried, in an ungovernable 
outburst. “1 — I — know nothing about it. I only know ' 
that you are detestable to me, and that if I had my wish 1 
would never see you again.” 

In the next instant she was gone, leaving the man be- 
hind gazing after her retreating figure with a look in his 
eyes that betokened no good to her. 


CHAPTEE XV. 

Ah hour after sunset, when streams of light were shoot- 
ing out from the light-house far across the sea, the 
“ White Wings ” brought her gay pleasure-party back 
into the inlet, where she was allowed to anchor, and prepa- 
rations for the dance were 'busily begun by the retinue of 
servants brought on board from The Breakers. 

It was at this juncture that St. Clair sought Paula Dyn- 
court, in whose bosom also raged the torments of the 
doomed, for Armand’s silence and desertion had been 
keenly felt by the fair widow. 

“ I will get you to excuse me from the evening’s festivi- 
ties,” he said, in his cool, indolent, yet resistless way. 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


137 


“ 1 feel quite cut up by the sun. The sailors — some of 
them — are going ashore in a few moments. 1^11 hear 
them company and see you later at The Breakers. 

Paula caught her breath sharply. This was a bitter dis- 
appointment to her. Moody and taciturn as St. Clair had 
been during the day, she had trusted to the dance in the 
evening to bring them together. 

She looked up at him with eager, beseeching eyes, yet 
she dared say but little against his project. 

St Claire so impressed his associates with his peculiar 
personality that few had ever dared resist and defy him as 
Trix had done. 

“ If you would ‘stay for a part of the cotillon 1 could 
then leave with you,^^ she said, wistfully. 

* 

“ My dear girl, don^t think of such generosity,^’ he ex- 
claimed, with his slight, sphinx-like smile. “ 1 will not 
be so selfish as to deprive you of the evening’s pleasure. 
I see the sailors are making ready, so I shall have to say 
au revoir for a little while.” 

With bitter eyes and a sinking heart, Paula stood and 
watched the sturdy yawl bearing him to the beach; 
when it had disappeared in the purple mist gliding over 
the sea, St. Clair, who had sat silent and motionless, 
roused himself and turned to the man at the oars. 

“ I will trouble you to put me ashore at the light- 
house,” he said, quietly. “ From there I will walk across 
the beach to the bay, where a skiff belonging to The 
Breakers has been tied since morning.” 

Distributing a handful of small coin among the sailors, 


138 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


he alighted, and soon was walking up the steep sand- 
banks that mark the coast. 

Here, when he had gained the level half-way between 
the light-house and that scraggy line of shrubbery that 
seemed but to increase the weird desolation of the dreary 
beach, he came suddenly upon a woman. 

She stood with her back to him, her dreary eyes turned 
out across the bay, to where the stately domes and point- 
ed, red-tiled roof of The Breakers gleamed in the russet 
evening light 

Occupied with bitter thoughts, as was evinced by the ex- 
pression of her stern face with its hollow caverns, no hint 
came to her of the approach of that 'tall, sinewy figure 
until it had gained her side, and St Clair laid one slim, 
beautiful hand upon her slender shoulder, and his soft 
voice reached her ears. 

“ June!'’ he said. 

The woman turned sharply, and fell back from him a 
step or two, looking into the perfect dusky splendor of his 
half-smiling visage with eyes in which a mute and terrible 
accusation burned. 

“You!” she said, at last, in a low voice throbbing with 
emotion. “ Then my instincts did not mislead me. 1 
felt that I should meet you this evening if 1 could find 
strength to get out; so I came, weak though I am.” 

“June, what are you doing here? Where have you 
been in hiding since the shipwreck? 1 searched for you, 
but could hear nothing of you, and I began to fancy that 
you must have been lost in the excitement of the hour or 
had waited for another steamer.” 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


139 


The woman faced him with eyes like lightning. 

“ Li9,r — murderer!’^ she uttered, in a voice vibrating 
with a terrible passion. “You knew that I was ill in the 
light-keeper^s family, for indirectly I gathered from Trij^ 
that you had repeatedly questioned her concerning me — 
and that proved it. Armand St. Clair never yet troubled 
himself to inquire after any person in whom he had not a 
dangerous interest. 

That slow, taunting smile curved St. Clair’s lips, 
though at mention of Trix’s name something like a slight 
convulsion had moved his frame. 

“ My dear, your clear-sightedness still does you credit,” 
he said, with a disdainful laugh. 

The woman seemed not to notice his words. She was 
looking at him with eyes that held a half-angry, half- ten- 
der flame in either of her hollow cheeks, growing brighter 
with every moment. 

“Armand,” she said, sudde;nly, in a tense voice, “do 
you know how many years it has been since you and I 
have stood face to face?” 

St. Clair moved his shoulders gracefully. 

“ You are impolite. Do you wish to remind me of my 
age?” he said, lightly. ^ 

“You are young enough; you are not yet forty,” she 
made curt reply. “ But perhaps time had not dealt so 
leniently with you if the four years that have passed since 
we two have spoken together had passed as mine have — in 
the slow horrors of a mad-house.” 

“ It might be somewhat interesting - to know by what 


140 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


lucky chance it is that you are not there now/^ observed 
St. Clair, with coolness. 

J Line looked at him in a sort of dreary amaze. 

' “ You are a brave man!^^ she exclaimed, involuntarily. 
“ No one else could face me with such calmness as yours. 
But I will answer your question. As you see yourself, 1 
have at last found a friend — consumption has set in to free 
me frotn your persecution. It is to that I owe my escape. 
In a little while it will have set me entirely free.^^ 

As she spoke she held up to his gaze her small, finely 
shaped but attenuated hand — transparent almost in the 
ravages of the fell disease that indeed had her surely in its 
merciless grip. 

But if she had expected to see any pity, any shock — 
even the slightest symptom of compassion— in that cool, 
calm face with its diabolical comj)osure, she was disap- 
pointed. Neither sympathy nor weakness was in him. 

“ You are obscure. I do not see how that has brought 
you here,^^ he observed. 

The woman pressed her teeth hard together. 

“ As my weakness and illness increased, the vigilance of 
my jailers diminished,^^ she replied, in a compressed voice. 

» “ They seemed to think my mental powers grew less with 
my strength — that is all. One day my chance came; I 
embraced it — and 1 am here, freed at last from that hid- 
eous confinement in which you placed me.^^ 

Again St. Clair shrugged his shoulders — this time in 
careless deprecation. 

‘‘ You ignore the fact that your own folly and obstinacy 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


141 


made it imperative that 1 should take this course with 
you/^ he remarked. 

“Ay; because that, after a dozen years, I had grown 
weary of my burden of sin borne for you, and 1 wished to 
atone, you shut me up in a mad-house.’’^ 

“ It was too late — it is too late to atone, replied St. 
Clair, a bleak, merciless, threatening vibration ringing in 
his voice. 

J une wheeled upon him like a tigress at bay. Into her 
sunken face flashed the old-time beauty — into her sunken 
eyes the old-time fire. 

“ And I say it is not too late!’^ she made answer, in her 
manner a terrible defiance that at last had its effect upon 
the usually immovable exterior of St. Clair. “ I was a 
fool to write you of my escape and intentions, and thus 
put you on your guard; but despite that folly, my brain is 
still strong and clear, and the sin that I have burdened 
my soul with for your sake has cursed me with such a bur- 
den of guilt that I swear I will atone by making restitu- 
tion. But first I will tell you that I know your secret — 
that I hold your honor and your good name in my hand. 
It was you who forced your way into the light-house-— you 
who shaded the lamp — you who wrecked the steamer 
because you knew that I was on board, and you hoped to 
send me to the bottom of the ocean, and thus escape my 
power. 

As the terrible denunciation was launched forth from 
her convulsed lips, SI. Clair’s <pyes lighted with a gleam 
that meant murder. His hand sought his hip-pocket and 
stealthily drew forth a pistol. In the fading light of even- 


142 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


ing, that had suddenly assumed a crimson hue, he bent 
toward, her. 


CHAPTER XVL 

But June noticed that significant gesture, though not 
the quivering of a muscle betrayed the fact. 

It was only by her words, now cool, incisive, unshaken 
as his own, that one would have divined her knowledge. 

“ Touch me — harm but a single hair of my head, and 
the truth, with all its deadly significance to you, will be 
published to the world. I have left in the hands of my 
only friend — you know who — a writtO'n account of the 
whole, which he has instructions to place in the hands of a 
lawyer. Did you think 1 would trust myself in your 
hands?’’ 

For an instant a furious, baffled gleam terrible to be- 
hold overshot St. Clair’s countenance; then across his 
features broke the, sickening, icy radiance of that smile 
which so peculiarly influenced Trix, and which June so 
well knew, that now for an instant she closed her eyes as 
one does before the deadly flash of lightning. 

“ Since you affirm such wisdom, concealment would be 
useless,” he said, his teeth gleaming wickedly through the 
silken blackness of his mustache as he furtively returned 
the weapon to his pocket. 

“Utterly useless,” retorted June, composedly, though 
this hour had written a look of agony on her face that 
only death could obliterate. “No one else suspects the 
truth of the shipwreck, but I who have that inner knowl- 
edge find no difficulty in associating you with the red- 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


143 


headed, roughly clad stranger who shaded the lamp. 
Again I say, it was the act of a fool for me to have writ- 
ten and informed you of my escape, and even given you 
the name of the steamer by which I would join you North, 
thereby placing myself in your power; but your evil sur- 
passed even my knowledge. I never thought you would 
dare wreck a ship in your desperate longing for my life.^'' 

She paused for a moment; then, while her face grew 
rigid in deep, determined lines, she continued : 

“ Armand St. Clair, there shall be no more glossing over 
of the hideous truth between you and me — no more play- 
ing at cross-purposes; eighteen years ago I believed myself 
your promised wife. You were the gay, high-bred but 
impoverished member of a grand old race, I the hired 
child-nurse of the family. The son of your father’s 
brother, by right of one month’s seniority, was heir to 
the family’s millions. You depended upon him almost for 
bread.” 

“ My memory has not yet become defective; why reca- 
pitulate the old story?” observed St. Clair, with a dry 
laugh. 

“ But there would still have been some hope for you,” 
continued J une, apparently not hearing his interruption, 
“ since the fortune was to become yours in event of your 
cousin’s death, before marriage and issue of his own, had 
not he ‘married a fair young girl, herself scarcely more 
than a child, who in a year’s time gave him a daughter 
that crushed your last hope. For the heir himself was in 
delicate health, and there was a a chance of your inherit- 
ing the vast wealth, had he died unmarried. This also 


144 THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 

you affirmed placed the seal of impossibility upon your 
and my union. Miserable^ but not despairing, I about 
this time accompanied the family on a trip North, in the 
capacity of nurse to the child. On our way to New York, 
and when we were but a few miles from this very coast, a 
terrible storm arose that wrecked the ship, and drowned 
every soul on board, save, by one of those marvelous coin- 
cidences that sometimes occur in life, the child and 1. 
Four boats put out from the wreck, but only one lived to 
reach the shore — the one in which I had embarked, and 
from that every one of my fellow-voyagers had been 
washed. Both your cousin and his wife were drowned, for 
I saw them swept away before my very eyes. 

“ Armand, madly as I loved you, I was never sure of 
your love; and amid the horror of that hour 1 still be- 
thought me of certain letters and documents of yours that* 
I had with me, which would prove my legal claim to be- 
come your wife. I seized this oil-skin bag containing 
them as I believed, and embarked with it in the life-boat. 
Later, when 1 was rescued and carried to a seaman’s cot- 
tage, 1 discovered that I had mistaken my mistress’s prop- 
erty for my own, she having had a bag containing a light 
change of clothing very similar to mine.” 

Was St. Clair’s mind crossed by a memory of Trix, her 
ancient brooch shining amid the old-time splendor of her 
finery? If so, his inscrutable countenance betrayed no 
hint of it. 

“ When I was rescued and taken ashore my first inquiry 
was if any tidings had been found of the child, and, mirac- 
ulous as it may seem, I ascertained that she had been 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


145 


found tied to a spar, and was even then sheltered under 
the very roof under which I lay. The other two lives 
which stood between you and fortune were gone — only this 
little frail existence kept you from the immense wealth, 
which, after all, was more yours than hers. When I 
thought of this a desperate plan came to me. 1 disclaimed 
all knowledge of 'the child to the people that sheltered us, 
and in the night stole away, leaving the baby behind. 

“ Since then the world has believed you to be the legal 
heir, but, Armand St. Clair, yoft and I know that Gerald 
St. Claires daughter lives, and is, therefore, the heiress. 
For a dozen years I kept the secret, and was faithful to 
you, though you were most faithless to me, and to all my 
pleadings for you to raise me to my rightful place and 
make me your wife you turned a deaf ear. 

“ Then slowly, after many years, the horror and repent- 
ance of my sin fell Upon me. 1 told you of it, begging 
you to help me to atone and restore the child to her own 
if she lived — for you could have done this without expos- 
ing your secret guilt — and you refused. T’hen, fearing me 
and my possession of your secret, four years ago you en- 
tombed me alive. But — her voice rang out with an 
awful passion — “ 1 have escaped you, and, despite your 
desperate effort to sink the ship and thus sweep me from 
your path, I will yet atone and save my soul from utter 
destruction. 

“ Only in one thing relating to the suppression of the true 
heir have I deceived you. I did not wish you to know the 
actual place of her abode, so I told you that 1 had carried 
her to the upper portion of the State of New York, and 


14a 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


there left her among farmers. That was false. I left her 
that night with the people who had rescued her — a woman 
named Martin, whose cottage was along the bay, ^d 
which must have been but a little distance from that 
grand place they call The Breakers, where you are now 
visiting. I was too weak, too excited, and in too great a 
hurry that night, so many years ago, to gather even sim- 
ple facts that I should have possessed myself of about 
these people; but if the child is living, there will be but 
little difficulty in finding her and proclaiming her to the 
world as the heiress to the St. Clair millions. Now, Ar- 
mand St. Clair, you know my resolution, do your worst; 
but you can not thwart me. 

She stood before him panting with physical weakness, 
yet a moral strength gleaming in her brilliant eyes, and an 
invincible resolution stamped upon all her sunken features. 

And still not the quivering of a muscle, not the flicker- 
ing of an eye betrayed any emotion in the man before her. 

He stood there cool, calm, self-possessed — only his 
dusky, almond - shaped eyes lighted with that deadly 
gleam, and his thin lips slightly drawn back, revealing a 
slender line of teeth within. Yet never was the brain of 
mortal man the battle-ground of more profound and des- 
perate thoughts than his. 

Through the day, and since seeing Trix clad in her 
finery, he had made cautious inquiries of the captain of 
the “ White Wings, whom he knew to be an old friend 
of Brian Vorn, and from him had heard Trix’s history; 
and his shrewd and far-seeing brain had instantly con- 
cluded that it was to the fact alone of June^s having se- 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


147 


cured the name of Brian’s sister instead of his own, and of 
his changed residence and vocation, that his companion 
had remained in ignorance of the circumstance of her 
again being sheltered under the same roof with that child 
whom sixteen long years ago she had deserted among stran- 
gers. 

But it was an ignorance that must ' be of short duration. 
Once let June get strong enough to pursue her search 
among the fisher-folk along the coast, and the truth must 
of necessity transpire. 

Horrible as was theJdea, desperate as was the complica- 
tion hemming him in, still the man preserved his self-con- 
trol, and only the rising of a single drop of moisture upon 
his low, broad brow hinted of the emotion seething within. 

One great and almost certain disaster confronting him 
was the recognition by June of one of the family jewels 
gleaming upon Trix’s bosom when she returned from the 
yacht. 

Any one as intimately connected with the St. Clairs as 
she had been must recognize the jewel and the dress, both 
of which she 4iad seen her mistress wear many times in 
those olden days. 

Even he, man though he was, had identified them both. 

“ Well, if nothing better turns ujd, I must trust to luck 
or the devil to keep them apart while the girl has that 
finery on,” he thought., “ Trix will stay late on board, 
and June will probably be abed when she returns. She is 
half dead with weakness now, which this excitement has 
increased.” 

“ Well, my dear, I will bid you good-evening,”- he said ^ 


148 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


aloud, his soft voice vibrating with a flute-like mockery. 
“ Pursue whatever course you please with regard to the 
little affair that has brought you North, aud good luck to 
you. But for the present 1 should advise you to go home 
and go to bed.'’^ 

He turned lightly upon his heel and was walking away 
when the forced . composure that the woman had main- 
tained suddenly gave way. 

Despite his many sins against her, despite the fact that 
death stared her in the face, and that she was here with 
the relentless purpose of ruining him, the old love and 
tenderness briefly awoke in her worn and weary soul. 

With a smothered cry she leaped after him and stood 
before him, her agonized eyes lifted to the dark perfection 
of his flint-like face, her hands reached beseechingly to- 
ward him, yet fearing him with that fear that all the 
world had of him, never daring to touch him, but with 
the whole of her agonized soul beseeching him in her spent 
and tortured face. 

“ Armand,^' she said, in a voice thick and hoarse, 
“after all these years that 1 have endured imprisonment 
at your hands — after all I have borne and suffered and lost 
through you — speak one kind word to me — give me the 
reward of one kind glance now that I am dying. 

St. Claires eyes, lacking the slightest quality of pity, 
were fixed meditatively upon her convulsed countenance. 

At last he drew nearer her. Into his face stole a soft- 
ness that gave to it exceeding beauty; his voice vibrated 
with a thrilling melody that flashed a shock of torture 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


149 


through the woman^s soul in a flood of bitter, mocking 
memories that came surging back under the exquisite 
sweetness of that voice through whose influence she had 
well-nigh been led to ruin. 

“ June,^^ he said, and she shivered under the madden- 
ing sweetness the name gathered on his lips, “ there is one 
way by which you can secure my entire devotion — one 
way by which I will sail away with you to-morrow — to- 
night — to some fair southern land, where the sunny skies 
and balmy breezes will check the inroads of that monster 
disease, and love and happiness will rekindle the fires of 
vitality and revive your hold upon life. It can be done. 
Happiness and the South have restored lives nearer spent 
than yours. Think of it, June. Never to be parted — 
always near my side — ever the object of my fondest love 
and devotion. His soft voice trailed into silence, his 
eyes, mesmeric and dazzling in their liquid light, dwelt 
upon her, as under the pressure of his deadly temptation 
she sunk lower and lower until her trembling figure 
crouched at his feet in the sands, her white, convulsed 
face lifted to the dusky glory of his. 

“ What shall it be, June? Love and happiness and 
long life, or death and the grave?^^ 

She shuddered, but shook her head that had sunk for- 
ward almost upon his feet, her trembling, attenuated arms 
wound tightly about his knees. 

“1 would die for you,^^ she muttered, in a thick, 
broken voice; ‘‘ but 1 must atone. While yet I have 
strength I must tell the truth and restore the girl to her 
right. 


150 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


AYithout a word St. Clair stooped, loosed the quivering, 
icy hands clinging so madly to him, and walked away. 

Too weak to rise, J une dragged herself to a partial sit- 
ting posture, and her wild voice called after him through 
the coiling wreaths of mist creeping in from the sea: 

“ One word— only one kind word. This parting is for- 
ever 

But that tall, sinewy figure walked steadily onward 
along the sands, only his laugh, sweet, mocking, seeming 
to fill all the air with a fiendish melody, floating back to 
her amid the hollow surging of the surf. 


CHAPTER XVII. 

He walked on until he came to the clump of scraggy 
shrubbery; here, as he had done upon the night of the 
‘ shipwreck, he sunk down under its cover and gave himself 
up to profound reflection. 

Disaster and ruin stared him in the face, The ghost of 
that old sin, so deep and so long buried that he had ceased 
to remember it, had come forth to torture and curse him 
with retribution. 

Though his indomitable will enabled him to preserve his 
scornful composure throughout the day and before the 
woman who held such a deadly power over him in her 
weak hands, none the less was he susceptible to the hor- 
rors of his situation. 

For so many years had he been the courted, flattered 
man of fortune, that the vast wealth, whose actual owner 
he was well aware he was defrauding in her helplessness 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


151 


and ignorance, he had grown to look upon as his own. 
And now in the midst of his security this grim foreshadow 
of disgrace and failure stalked in his way. 

Almost with a word June could beggar hiln, publish his 
crime to the world, fling him in prison, and in his place 
establish the girl who would then be at the head of the 
house of St. Clair and owner of the St. Clair millions. 

At that thought he sprung up and began pacing to and 
fro. His white, cruel-lookiug teeth were pressed hard to- 
gether. His olive face became terribly dark. His long, 
velvety eyes were hot and glowing like a tiger’s, and he 
busied himself alternately with the light-house and with 
one of the merry crew on the “ White Wings. 

“ If I had time 1 could circumvent her yet,^^ he mut- 
tered, his glance now fixed upon the light-house tower. 
“ 1 could take measures to return her to the asylum, 
where she would as little trouble me as though the grave 
had closed on her. But the accursed proximity of the girl 
fills every moment with the blackest peril, and before 1 
can complete any arrangements June may discover her 
identity and reveal all.^^ 

He paused in his soliloquy, his haggard, beautiful face 
still turned toward those high, bald walls from which 
flashes of light were momentarily sweeping, and toward 
which he could make out the tall, slim form of the dying 
woman making her way in the deepening gloom. Again 
his lips moved. 

“It is a case that will admit of no delay; the death of 
June would simplify matters, and is, in point of fact, the 
only alternative. So far as she herself is concerned, it is 


152 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


but a matter of trifling importance. She admits that she 
is death-stricken. Since that is a fact, what matters it 
wether she makes her exit at the appointed time, or is 
hastened by a few days, and in season to save me? It is 
altogether the same, while 1 am but following out the 
given course for man, since self-preservation is the first 
law of nature.’^ These thoughts passed through his mind 
without creating, the slightest emotion, indeed, his counte- 
nance grew more composed as his mind was getting down 
to a fixed course. 

Mercy was not in him. 

As ruthlessly as a blood-hound follows its instincts and 
rends to atoms its prey, he planned out the fate of the 
woman who, through long years of neglect and ingrati- 
tude, had borne the burden of their mutual sin. She had 
been faithful when he had proven faithless. She asked no 
guerdon but simply a kind wor^, a loving glance from 
those beautiful, cruel, merciless eyes in which her heaven 
for so long and weary a time had lain. 

“ She has left papers with her only friend that will be 
opened in case of her failing to turn up after a designated 
interval,^^ he continued, the expression of profound 
thought deepening in his countenance. “ Well, I should 
say, that since she has been so long detained from pursu- 
ing her work of ‘ atonement,^ she will have most likely 
communicated with that person, informed of the state 
of the case, and lengthened the given time that is to 
transpire before he is to take any action. In that case the 
next course for me to pursue, after settling June, is to go 
South at once, look up the fellow, and, either by fair 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 153 

means or foul, get the papers from him before he will 
have had time to take any action upon them. Once I am 
South 1 will have comparatively smooth sailingr A dozen 
hands will be ready to stretch forth, receive the responsi- 
bility, and take the dirty work off mine. But here in this 
accursed North 1 have no tools or allies. 1 dare look for 
none. For that reason I must do the work to-night my- 
self. Bah! 1 hate such disgusting business. He said 
this with a shrug of his graceful shoulders, and then 
looked at his long, dark, delicate hands with exactly the 
same expression that a lady might view the thrusting of 
her snowy, jeweled fingers into a pan of dish-water. 

But with all his inherent savagenes^ he was outwardly 
refined, and the thought of driving a knife through the 
heart that even yet beat alone for him, or placing a pistol 
to the head that had so long schemed and secreted for 
him, aroused in his bosom the same sense of aversion as he 
would have experienced at being compelled to soil his 
hands by wringing a bird's neck. 

“ What is to be done must be done this evening before 
the girl gets back from the yacht, he continued, in his 
murderous^ reflection. “ I believe I would as leave fight a 
whole regiment as her. Her courage, despotism, utter 
uncontrollableness are explained now. She is a St. Clair! 
Small wonder that we have detested each other since the 
first hour of our rather unconventional meeting. We are 
natural enemies. Well, my small termagant, my proud, 
wee duchess, though you have fought me right and left 
like a tiger-kitten, and would defy me though I stood with 
a pistol at your head, it is comforting to know that, sud 


154 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


rosa, 1 hold the whip-hand — I am taking ample venge- 
ance for your insolent disdain and contempt of me! It is 
only a little matter of three million dollars that 1 am 
cheating you out of, my tiny kinswoman. And yet, I be- 
lieve it would be worth all of it to find that you are in my 
power; to see those haughty eyes of yours quail; to rend 
and break your dauntless spirit and drag it to the dust! 
Gad! I ^ would giv^e ten years of my life to accomplish all 
thisr’ 

The words broke from him in a deadly fury that all 
J une^s threats and denunciations had been unable to awaken 
in him. 

“ By Heaven! I will do it! Unless the heavens fall, 1 
will do it!’^ he hissed, as he stood there in the coiling 
wreaths of mist, his long, glowing, scintillating eyes hold- 
ing a strange, lurid fire. “ 1 will find a way to bend, if 
not break, her will. Fury and darkness! what power has 
that tormenting, exasperating small demoness over me 
that she seems to hold my thoughts in spite of all resist- 
ance!^^ 

Again he paused and began pacing up and down the 
beach. His straight, dark brows were drawn together. His 
dusky, southern face showed signs of the deep emotion 
raging within him. 

“Ye gods!^’ he continued, “ what a look was in her 
eyes this afternoon when we stood with the locket between 
us, and she told me that I was abhorrent to her; that she 
wished she might never see me again! Curse the locket! 
I always felt that 1 ought to have destroyed the thing, 
since the old crones have always said that it owned a mys- 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


155 


tic charm that in time would right all wrongs of the St. 
Clair race. But as it had belonged to the heir since time' 
immemorial, I hardly dared. And yet, never has there 
been a time when 1 did not half fancy that the thing 
might be the means of restoring Gerald St. Clair’s heiress 
— this self-s-ame Trix — to her own. But why in fury will 
my mind wander to her in spite of the dark work waiting 
for me! It is this influence she wields over me that in- 
tensifies my hatred of her!” 

Again he broke off, and his mysterious, sphinx-like eyes 
in a look of inexplicable, repressed fury once more turned 
to the spot where Valerie’s splendid yacht rode at anchor 
and her guests danced away the evening hours. 

“Is it hatred — this strange, restless, burning fire, that 
has given me no peace since I have known her? 1 have 
hated before, but this that 1 feel for her seems to be more 
than torture.” 

With which outburst of the fierce passions blazing like 
volcano-fires within his bosom, he wheeled about and with 
the reckless, splendid daring that was in him walked 
leisurely toward the light-house. 

By the door, as usual, sat Captain Vorn. As he was 
joined by this, the most honored guest of The Breakers, 
the old seaman rose upon his one leg, and saluted him 
with all that punctilious ceremony that is characteristic of 
the old-time water-dog. 

“You are welcome, sir,” he said, with his unfailing 
courtesy, and a little flattered that so great a man would 
condescend to pause at his humble door. “Will you have 
a seat? Though you will find it but dull here with* my 


156 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


little mate away. Dowd^ you brute. What is the mean- 
ing of this?^" 

The old light-keeper had turned swiftly to the blood- 
hound, which, though muzzled and tied, had sprung up at 
the approach of St. Clair, and was. now crouching ready 
for a dangerous spring. 

“I was crossing to the bay and could not resist the 
temptation to drop in on you a minute. Never mind the 
dog; he seems determined to show me that he will murder 
me if he ever gets the chance. 

St. Clair’s light voice was flute-like and sweet as the 
murmur of some southern sea. But as he spoke his 
swift glance was darting about the place. 

Where was June? He had trusted to her repairing to 
her room immediately on her return from that exciting 
and fatiguing interview. 

But if she should be about? Would she make a scene if 
she came upon him there, hovering like a bird of ill-omen 
about her? 

This step that he had taken was fraught with danger. 
Yet it was the one course left him. 

Ah! could the old light-keeper have but foreseen the 
tragedy hanging above his head, he would have repaired to 
his high, safe walls and locked away his little household 
from the reach of this smiling-faced, silken-tongued, fine 
gentleman who personated death and disaster. 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


157 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

For a moment silence followed as Armand St. Clair 
stood facing the old light-keeper; then the former drew 
near the subject that had brohght him there. 

“ By the way, how is your stranger guest?^^ he inquired, 
with that graceful lonliomie that he could assume at will, 
and which at such times threw about him a dazzling, 
almost mesmeric sweetness. 

“You see, 1 have hajl one or two conversations with 
Miss Trix, and from her have received the full particulars 
of the case,^^ he added with a smile. 

Captain Vorn’s face grew grave. 

“ She is better than when we first brought her here, for 
shp is so that she can get about, he answered, uncon- 
.scious of the terrible purpose embodied in that tall and 
elegant form rearing above him. 

“ But she is far from well, sir. I donT dare tell my 
mate,^^ continued the ex-sea-captain, unconsciously lower- 
ing his voice and glancing over his shoulder, “ for she’s 
taken such an interest in the poor soul; but it’s my opin- 
ion that her days are numbered.” 

The light-keeper did not notice that peculiar gnawing of 
the beautiful thin under-lip of his companion. 

“But, ill as she is, her mind is more diseased than her 
body; if ever a broken heart looked out of human eyes, it 
looks out of hers, sir,” proceeded the ex-captain of the 
schooner “ Trix.” 

St. Clair had taken out his little foreign tobacco-pouch 


158 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


and was rolling a cigarette. His soft, olive fingers were as 
steady as though they had been bronze. 

“ Poor beggar!^’ he said, in the assumed careless 2)ity 
that a more humane heart than his might have accorded a 
dog. “ Then one must believe that the world has not 
been exactly a bed of roses tcf her. Is she about?’^ 

“Not just now; slie has retired for the night. She 
went out early in the afternoon — the first time she had 
been out since she has been here — and came in a few mo- 
ments ago looking as^if the waves might have showed her 
her cofiin, she was so white and pinched. I’ve seen a good 
many sights in my time, and it takes more than a little to 
give me a start; but, by the ocean’s ghosts, it gave me a 
turn, as the old women say, to look in that woman’s face 
when she got back. ” 

“ The walk must have cut her up,” observed those even 
tones of careless melody. 

“ Something cut her up,” returned Brian Vorn, knit- 
ting his shaggy brows, “ It did cross my mind that may 
be she might have seen some one that had upset her. ” 

Ah! now those soft, tigerish, half-closed eyes of St. 
Clair for a moment flashed wide upon the old man, though 
his voice was still unmoved as he inquired his reason for 
such a thought. 

‘ ‘ Well, it was only that she seemed so desperately shaken 
np about something. But may be I’m all out of my bear- 
ings. You know you can’t tell much about a craft when 
her timbers are rotten. There’s no knowing what freak 
she may take. Howsomever, I reckon I’ll know all in 
the morning. She said she wanted a long talk with me in 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


159 


the morning about something that was of vital importance. 
Those were her own words, sir.^^ 

The dark, flawless perfection of St. Clair’s countenance 
gave no hint that the words had a deadly significance for 
him. And yet, beyond doubt ‘the conversation that June 
had requested would have related to the search she in- 
tended instituting for Gerald St. Claires heiress, when the 
whole disastrous truth must have come out.» As the light- 
keeper had been talking, St. Claires glance, swift, restless, 
comprehensive, had been sweeping about the light-house 
and its surroundings, in his desperate desire to ascertain 
the full 'extent of the difiiculties that he must cope with 
and overcome to effect an entrance. By some means he 
must secrete himself in the light-house that he might be 
on hand to-night for his deadly work. 

The only shadow of a hope for him seemed to lie in a 
small shed adjoining the light-house, and which Guilda 
used for the rougher portion of her household labors. A 
door, now open, connected the shed with the main portion 
of the house. 

For the success of his scheme it was imperatively neces- 
sary that he should ascertain the mode of fastening on 
these doors. 

A slight change in his position enabled him to perceive 
that the door of the shed leading to the living-room was 
secured by a lock, the key of which remained in it, while 
the outer door of all fastened more securely with a bolt 
and chain. 

Once he was on the outside of that bolt and chain, no 
device of his could hope to effect an entrance. Where- 


160 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


fore, lie must conceal himself inside the shed, secure the 
key of the inner door, and wait until the house grew still. 

It was a desperate chance, but the danger of discovery 
was diminished by the fact that old Guilda had finished her 
household duties for the night, and now sat by the win- 
dow, her sad eyes roaming out over the great, restless 
waves beating against the clifis. 

If he could 'get in the shed, it was fair to assume that 
he would remain undiscovered behind the pile of seines 
and cordage that lay in one corner, as Guilda’s labors in 
that apartment were presumably done. 

After a few moments’ conversation, St. Chair bade 
Brian Vorn good-night, and went away as if to cross the 
bay. 

When his path had so diverged that the keen eye of the 
old ex-sea-captain could no longer see him, he made a 
detour, and returned to the light-house, approaching it at 
the side opposite to where Brian and Guilda sat. 

“ I think I can manage to elude the man and woman. 
It is that cursed dog I have the most to fear, since that 
little slie-wolf Trix is away,” he muttered. 

But, the “ devil favoring his own,” he gained his goal 
undiscovered, and no hint came to the two old people sit- 
ting silently in the salt, damp evening of the nearness of a 
third person. 

In the rear' of the shed there was an open window, with 
the shutter thrown back. 

To this aperture St. Clair turned his attention, and, to 
his gratification, it proved sufficiently large to admit of 
the passage of his body. 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


161 


In the next moment he had leaped noiselessly through 
it^ landed in the shed, and secreted himself behind the pile 
of nets. 

When it got duskier he would reach forth his long, slim 
arm and possess himself of the key of the inner door, 
which opened toward him, and- thus be prepared for his 
desperate work. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

Meanwhile chance—or, rather, Valerie’s jealousy — 
was serving St. Clair’s ends. 

The entertainment was at its height on board the 
“White Wings.” 

Supper fit ^for a royal banquet had been served by the 
liveried retinue of servants that had come aboard from 
The Breakers, and wine-cups had been generously passed. 

Trix, pre-eminently the belle of the assembly, and seat- 
ed in state at the board, only occasionally sipped sparingly 
of the contents of her glass, for she was as temperate as a 
monk and abhorred wine. 

But Valerie practiced no such abstinence, and again and 
again was her glass filled, while every moment in her eyes 
deepened the feverish fires that had been kindled by her 
jealous hatred of Trix, 

After supper came the dance. * 

Then Trix was in greater demand than ever. All 
through the lovely moonlit hours — moonlit here on the 
sea, for the mist was (freeping landward— her dainty, 
small form flitted through the entrancing figures of the 
cotillon, the maddeningly sweet strains of the accom- 


162 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


plishe^ orchestra rising and swelling about the gay throng, 
the waves softly lapping the sides of the stately craft; 
while away to the east the great beacon-light flashed out 
over the waters, and gave no hint of the dark cloud slowly 
descending upon the occupants of the tall, smooth walls 
grimly uprising in the night. 

But though Trix’s position was the most enviable, a dull 
misgiving still tormented her heart and a weight op- 
pressed her spirits, gay as they were in outward seeming. 

And yet she would not yield unconditional surrender to 
its influence; she. ref used to acknowledge even to herself 
that she was not supremely happy. 

She fought against the temptation to pay attention to 
the doings and movements of Felix Carew,»who, as night 
approached, had flung off that strange morosity and now 
mingled freely with his companions, apparently once more 
his handsome, indolent self. 

Carew had danced twice with Valerie — had, in fact, 
danced with almost every one — but not with Trix. 

“ Surly, impolite wretch,’^ thought the indignant Trix, 
now, as for a moment she gave Felix her five little nut- 
brown fingers in a figure of the dance that threw them 
thus together. “ One would think he would have asked 
me just once, if only out of politeness; not that it in the 
least signifies. I wouldn’t give him a dance if^he begged 
it of me on his knees, bravely continued this little fiery 
maiden, glancing with hostility into those particularly fine 
cool gray eyes of Carew. * 

How could she tell that the whole of Felixes hidden, 
deej) soul was moved with a passion for her that this day 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


163 


of her society had compelled him to recognize, even 
though under his mistaken impression of her he strove 
against it? 

How could she tell the great yearning that swept 
through him as his hot fingers for an instant closed over 
hers — that yearning to draw her away from the pleasure- 
seeking throng and the burning glances of admiration that 
was her portion from all sides, and folding her in his arms 
tell her the story of his great love for her that had sprung 
up in him? 

The touch of that little, slighting hand that lay with 
such disdainful reluctance in his undid all the resolutions 
that Carew had so faithfully cherished through all the day. 

But he had determined to crush out this infatuation, 
give no encouragement to this weak, mad fancy. 

And yet, as he felt Trix^s breath upon his cheek, as he 
drew her lithe, soft form into his arms, in that blessed 
figure of the cotillon, a reckless abandonment swept away 
his determination. 

“ I will give mystlf a few minutes’ grace. I’ll dance 
with her once — just once — before the night ends,” he told 
himself. “ To-morrow 1 will cut the whole business and 
be oft for New York; when a man is on the verge of such 
madness as mine it is best to get away from the danger.” 

When the dance was finished, Trix, upon whose strength 
that strange unrest was beginning to tell in a sort of 
tremulous weariness, stole away to a remote portion of the 
deck. Here, as she stood alone, leaning one pretty, bare, 
soft shoulder against the rigging, her eyes turned out 


164 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


toward the vast watery expanse, a voice suddenly broke 
upon her silence: 

“ Are you fond of solitude, Miss Vorn?^^ it asked. 

It was a very commonplace inquiry, but instantly this 
small, human powder-magazine conceived the idea that it 
contained an under-current of conscious satire; that the 
tall splendid, blonde-bearded man standing there staring 
at her in the moonlight was aware of that certain secret 
something, which so far had been nameless even to him- 
self, in her heart, and was glorying over his conquest. 

When, in reality, if there was ever one thing of which 
Felix Carew had been morally and eternally sure, it was 
that this small lady confronting him with so angry a mien 
as to almost bewilder him, was the most arrant coquette 
that ever tormented a man’s soul, and particularly and 
utterly indifferent to his handsome self. 

“ Am 1 fond of solitude? Yes, certainly, else 1 should 
not have sought it,” she answered, “ and — and wish to le 
let alone.” 

A smile came over Carew’s lips under the red-gold glory 
of his silken beard. But brief as was that smile, Trix’s 
particularly sharp vision had detected it, and her panic of 
shammed fright increased. Theai he did know of that — 
that queer feeling at her heart, and oh, horrors! he was 
laughing at it. 

She set her little white teeth hard, while her bosom 
heaved in a tempest of angry mortification. 

“ Miss Vorn, will you give me the next dance?” in- 
quired Felix, abruptly. 

“ No, thank you,” was Trix’s quick retort. 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOESE LASS. 


165 


Carew bent a little nearer her. He was so universally 
the pet of women that it was hard to realize the indiffer- 
ence of this proud, willful, cross child to him. 

“You will not dance with me?’’ incredulously. 

“No.” 

“ You are not engaged?” resentfully. 

“No.” 

Again he paused. For the moment pride, prudence, 
self-respect were forgotten. Nothing was remembered or 
realized but the hot, tremulous flood of passion sweeping 
like a race-horse through all his being. 

“Will you tell me your objections to dancing with 
me?” he asked, in a low, repressed voice, bending yet still 
nearer her. 

Trix shrugged her shoulders, but maintained a disdain- 
ful silence. 

Carew’s usually cool eyes, now filled with a swift, 
mighty fire, fastened devouringly upon that creamy, satin- 
smooth, naked shoulder. 

“ Well, it is scarcely worth quarreling about. 1 beg 
your pardon,” he said, as he turned away, and started in 
the direction of that portion of the deck where the dancing 
was going on. 

Left alone, Trix’s angry eyes followed his splendid form 
for an instant, then she bent her head, and laid her hot 
face upon her arms, that were folded on the rail, and a 
wave of strange, sad feeling swept over her. 

“ It must be that I am in love. . AVhat eyer made me do. 
it?” The thought almost drove her mad. For what, 
thought she, could this handsome man ever be to her? 


166 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


Meanwliile, Valerie, her jealous soul tormented with a 
foretaste of purgatory, which was aroused by her own evil 
passions, had been watching witlu the eye of a basilisk 
those two lost in that short, stormy interview. 

Scarcely a move of Felixes had escaped her, and as she 
noticed the suppressed agitation of his manner, the swift, 
fiery flame of passion that cropped out in the gesture with 
which he had bent above the beautiful but rebellious fig- 
ure confronting him, a wave of desperation mingled with 
her savage misery. 

“ My God! why must I sufler so?’^ she cried out in 
her toi’tured soul. “ Why have I been given this nature 
to love so madly if love is to be denied me? If I turn into 
a living, breathing demon it is not my fault. ‘ Jealous as 
pagans, and blood-thirsty as savages. ’ It is the nature of 
my race. Oh, my God, 1 wish I could have escaped the 
curse. I wish it had not awakened in me,^^ and for an 
instant, smitten with a deadly terror of her own passions, 
Valerie ^s eyes glanced wildly about her as if seeking some 
visible power to uphold her from the black depths of her 
own evil nature. 

But in the next moment this more human phase of her 
nature became swept aside by the maddened jealousy riot- 
ing through all her being, as her glance riveted on the 
dusky loveliness of her rival, and she caught her breath 
sharply as Trix, in her miserable abandonment, leaned so 
recklessly over the rail. 

“ One push,, only one push, and I could send her into 
the ocean, she panted, her delicate jeweled hands work- 
ing convulsively at the hideous thought. “May be. she 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


167 


might drown — may be she might — though she's a good 
swimmer. Ah, but I could make sure, 1 could watch, and 
as she came up strike her a blow on the head with an' 
oar;’^ and her glance, with a terrible speculation, riveted 
on one of the yacht’s small boats hanging from its tackle 
almost beside Trix. 

“ No one could hear her cry, for the music would drown 
her voice. Shall I do "it? Ah, dear Heaven, I must. 
What is her life, my soul, compared to Felix? And 1 love 
him so: while he — his every glance and thought are but 
for her. 

The words ended in a hoarse sob, though her eyes were 
dry and glassy, and filled with the awful purpose aroused 
by her jealousy, which the wine she had drunk for supper 
had inflamed. One brief .interval of hesitation, while 
Valerie Dyncourt’s good angel warred with her bad to res- 
cue her soul from the hideous pit of darkness to which it 
was sinking, and the die was cast. AYith a swift glance 
about the decks upon which every soul was too much oc- 
cupied to notice her, she glided along in the shadow of the 
rigging until she was within a few feet of the unconscious 
Trix. 

Here she paused and again swept her Wd desperate eye 
about the vicinity. 

No one was visible, though near to both the girls was 
Felix Carew, who, having no mind to return to the 
dancers, had ensconced himself in a quiet nook, where he 
lingered moody and invisible. 

One long sweepmg glance, and the cat-like figure of 
Valerie leaped forward, and gathering all her strength. 


168 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


she seized the slight lovely form bending over the rail and 
flung it into the sea. 

What influence was it that caused her to look in the 
direction of that secluded spot where !Felix lingered as she 
committed her terrible deed? 

It must have been mesmerism; for in the next instant, 
as the dull splash of sundered waters cut the hush at that 
end of the vessel^ she saw the magnificent figure of Carew 
leap forth, and he glanced swiftly around. 

The desperate murderess had just time to dart behind 
the rigging, when Felix bounded forward to the spot where 
he had left Trix and glanced wildly at the glittering, danc- 
ing sea. 

There, some distance away, and illuminated by the 
serene and queenly moon, he. saw the dusky, upturned 
face of Trix. 

Flot an instant did Felix hesitate. 

With one swift movement he shed his coat and vest, 
and bounding upon the rail leaped into the ocean. 

With a few rapid, masterly strokes he gained the side of 
the girl. 

However tragically the affair might have turned out had 
Valerie been left to her own murderous will, it took more 
than the sudden chilly bath Trix had received to quench 
her fiery spirit. ’ 

She had pulled herself together after the first natural 
shock, and now with her little brown hands was striking 
out bravely for the vessel, when she saw Carew making 
for her. 

To Trix’s peculiar temperament to be assisted by the 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 109 ' 

man with whom she had so grandly refused to dance so . 
recently and who, moreover, she had a horrible idea was 
aware of<“the secret influence he wielded over her, was in- 
tolerable. 

Her anger at her plight and bewildered amazement at 
being flung thus into the sea like a bale of merchandise 
concentrated in a flash of blind fury for the man who had 
risked his life to save her. 

So little sense and reason had impulsive, quick-tempered 
Trix! 

“ Go away. I do not need you; 1 hate you. I can save 
myself I’"’ she immediately spluttered upon seeing Carew. 

But he, half wild with fright at seeing her thus at the 
mercy of the great waves, pressed on to her side, where he 
thrust out one strong steel-like hand to grasp her. 

“ Do not touch me, I — 1 — will not be helped by you!^^ 
panted Trix, her great eyes glittering fury into his, her 
little, wet, fierce face gleaming like a mermaid’s amid the 
angry billows, and the ^long, silken luxuriance of her 
black hair streaming weirdly upon the white foam of the 
breakers. 

For one instant, so wild and startling was her dauntless 
splendor in this new phase afid amid these new surround- 
ings, that it struck Carew with a sort of stupefaction. 

A sort of despair fell upon him, and there, amid the 
briny flood, surrounded by certain death, which yet they 
both were so capable of resisting and defying, he surren- 
dered — told himself that it was fate; that her beauty and 
her fascinations made it impossible for him to resist her; 
that this laughing, indomitable, passionate child must be 


170 


THE liITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


his if by any means he could win her. Let her be what 
she would; however wretched she might make his life 
through suspense and jealousy, it could not be half as ac- 
cursed as life without her. 

“ Trix! Trix! willful, naughty Trix, be stilU/^ he mur- 
mured, in a voice vibrating with a tinge of irrepressible 
passion. “You wicked, tormenting elf, you are mine; 
henceforth this is your place. And with one quick gest- 
ure he flung out his arm and drew that little sylph-like 
form vehemently to his side. 

Trix, still supporting herself like a baby-seal, or any 
young, strong thing that thrives and glories in the sea, 
looked at him with startled, dilated eyes, while a strange, 
swift ecstasy, almost agony, shivered through her soul. 

Then with the wild, graceful shyness of a young hind, 
she broke away from him, and, plunging beneath the sea, 
reappeared after an interval some distance from him, her 
witching, tormenting face, now filled with a delicious, 
mocking laughter, turned backward toward him. 

Valerie, standing alone breathless and palpitating on 
the deck of the “ White Wings, had seen long ere this 
that she had overreached herself, that the hideous tragedy 
she had planned was turning out a burlesque, a mere sport 
for those two, as much at home in the treacherous, danc- 
ing sea as though they had been upon the velvet-swarded 
lawn of The Breakers. 

Now watching them in an agony of suspense and disap- 
pointment, a fiendish idea came to her. It chanced that 
at her feet there lay a length of heavy chain. 

Like a flash she stooped, and, with fingers that almost 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


171 


worked as magic, twisted the chain into a heavy, comj)act 
knot as deadly as a cannon-ball. 

Trix was now close to the side of the anchored vessel, 
Carew some distance behind. Both were wholly intent 
upon themselves. 

Valerie caught her breath with a thrill of satanic exulta- 
tion. All was not yet lost; one blow of the knotted chain 
upon that pretty, dusky temple, plainly to be seen amid 
the flood, and it was fair to believe that her hated rival 
would be forever out of her way. 

With a sudden deviFs strength she lifted the iron Hiissile 
and aimed it at the little dark head now directly beneath 
her in the flood. 


OHAPTEE XX. 

Until long afterward Carew never knew what of a sud- 
den swept that deathly whiteness into the small, dauntless, 
laughing face that his soul was feasting upon through his 
glance — what closed those wicked, dancing eyes with a 
look that drove him sick at heart, so like to death was it — 
that suddenly straightened out, rigid and still, that little 
graceful form floating upon the waves; for intent upon 
watching Trix he had not noticed the huge ball of iron 
that Valerie has hurled at the young girl, and which, 
though fortunately for her victim her aim was untrue 
through excitement, had yet struck Trix's temple with 
sufficient force to stun her. 

With one rapid stroke Felix gained the unconscious girl, 
and grasping her firmly by the shoulders approached the 
yacht, whose sides, by a superhuman exertion of his splen- 


172 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


did strength and agility, he was able to scale.' There was 
no resistance now. 

Horribly still the slim, soft form lay in his arms, as he 
stood for an instant on the deserted quarter of the deck, 
the dainty, dark head drooping upon his shoulder like a 
wounded bird^s, the long ebon lashes brushing the ashen 
cheek, the proud, defiant, laughing mouth still as death. 

“ My little love — my darling — my life,^^ whispered 
Felix, passionately, in her ear, while his starting, horrified 
eyes in vain searched the little pale face for some signs of 
life. 

They were utterly alone. 

Valerie, after doing her worst, had sped back to her 
guests, like the guilty thing she was, and not another soul 
on board had an idea of that near approach of tragedy 
into their midst. 

But a few moments later, when the dripping rescuer 
and rescued stood before them, all was confusion and ex- 
citement. 

The men, perhaps, as might have been only natural, 
more than the women, were louder and more sincere in 
their regret over the accident, and crowded in admiring, 
half-jealous sympathy around the little form in Carew^s 
arms until Paula, with great good sense, ordered that gen- 
tleman to carry his lovely burden below. 

There on one of the satin divans, and ministered to by 
two or three of the elder portion of the ladies acting as 
chaperons, Trix soon came around, and actually to Vale- 
rie herself, who appeared the most anxious of her sympa- 
thizers, gave an account of the accident. 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


173 


“ But, my dear Trix/’ murmured Valerie, as she sat 
beside her, who had been robed in sundry dry habiliments 
collected from the ladies, one arm actually thrown around 
the little form that she had striven so desperately to con- 
sign to a watery grave, “ don’t you know you must be 
mistaken. Who could have thrown you overboard? Who 
would have wanted to play such a hideous prank?” 

Trix shook her dark head dubiously. 

“ I don’t know, but I am positive that seme one did do 
it,” she answered, be wilderedly. “And yet, as you say, 
who was it? There are no midnight assassins on board, 
and if Ijhere were what would they want with me?” 

Ah, what! poor, thoughtless, unprotected child! 

“But you will admit,” proceeded Trix, “that some- 
thing struck me a blow on the head; this can not be de- 
nied,” and she raised one finger to a large, livid scar on 
the temple where the missile had grazed. 

Had it struck full and fair. Captain Vorn’s first mate 
would never more have opened her eyes in this world. 

“ Ah, yes, of course; but no doubt, dear, it was some 
floating spar’ or other object,” returned Valerie, with con- 
viction, while she drew Trix still closer in that treacherous 
embrace. 

Felix and Trix did not again meet that night. While 
the former was being attended to after his unexpected 
bath by his comrades, Valerie managed that Trix should 
be taken ashore under' the escort of a good-natured matron 
and the young millionaire, who but too thankfully availed 
himself of this opportunity to enjoy a quiet tete-d-tele with 
the little beauty, and who only reluctantly left her when 


1?4 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HODSE LASS. 


the deep-set door of the light-house had closed on her and 
Captain Torn, who was sitting up for his comrade. 

“ Mate/^ the old seaman had whispered an instant be- 
fore they entered the house, “ she — June — is down-stairs. 
She came down a few moments ago. 

“ Ay, ay, sir,^^ answered the little mate, in surprise. 

“She seems dreadfully restless — wild almost — and 
there’s a look in her eyes that is enough to turn a nervous 
person sick, it’s ^ queer,” in some trepidation continued 
the old man, who had a horror of women-folk in general. 

“ Ay, ay; it’s the remorse gnawing at her soul,” re- 
turned his mate, reassuringly. “ Poor, poor soul! what 
can she have done that leaves her no moment free from 
torture?” 

Inside, June, with a strange shadow upon her sunken 
face, sat by a seaward window, the salt breeze sweeping in 
fanning her fever-hot cheek and gently stirring those 
silken tendrils of hair lying upon her broad forehead, and 
which the fickle, faithless hand of Armand St. Clair had 
so often caressed in “ the days that are no more.” 

Of course Trix, rigged out in her heterogeneous attire, 
had to relate in full particulars the late accident, not with- 
out many exclamations of dismay from Captain Vorn at 
the ruin wrought his mate’s fine feathers; as to danger, 
there was little or none to Captain Vorn in his comrade’s 
plunging into the sea, where she was as much at home as 
upon shore. 

How could he dream of that d*eadly passion of jealousy 
that underlaid this seemingly trifling accident? 

“But my poor dress — just look at it. It is quite 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


175 


spoiled,” cried Trix, ruefully, as she finished her recital, 
and shook out the limp rag to which her pretty foreign 
robe had been reduced. 

Oh I would now no instinct whisper the truth to that 
silent, sad-eyed woman sitting by the window, her glance 
cursorily flitting across the dress, that, if the truth had 
but been known, was the open sesame to the girhs fortune 
— the resistless key to the past? 

Would no memory awake in her troubled soul of that 
other time — no vision appear in those moist, fateful folds 
to apprise her that here, right beside her, was the girl that 
she had so bitterly wronged through the long years of her 
sin, and to whom, in the weakness of her death agony, she 
was yet struggling so desperately to atone? 

Making himself as comfortable as possible in his re- 
stricted quarters, that he cursed “ not loud but deep ” in 
his fastidious soul, Armand St. Claif .broke into a cold 
perspiration, despite the invincible calm of his self-con- 
tained nature, as his dead cousin^s heiress shook out the 
dress before the one being on earth, beside himself, who 
could have recognized it — who had power through it to 
strip him of the wealth and power that he so unjustly 
held, and drag his hidden crime before the world that now 
bowed down to him and worshiped him. 

But no warning voice whispered the truth to that poor 
sin-worn soul standing upon the portal of the unknown 
world. 

‘ ‘ Sometimes on lonely mountain meres 
I find a magic bark, 

I leap on board, no helmsman steers, 

I float till all is dark. 


176 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


A gentle sound, an awful light: 

Three angels bear the Holy Grail; 

With folded feet, in stoles of white. 

On sweeping wings they sail.” 

Thus did the atonement ever escape her; thus had she 
struggled on “ lonely mountain meres to find the track 
to her salvation; and here, ever like Sir Galahad, at her 
very door it lay had but her eyes been cleared of the 
“ veil to see it. 

As Trix, worn out with the day’s festivities, at last rose 
with the proposition that they should seek their beds — 
Captain Vom having already retired to his — June turned 
her large, wistful, melancholy glance upon the softly sym- 
pathetic face confronting her. 

“ I — I — somehow feel restless to-night,” she murmured, 
piteously. “Would you mind sitting with me a little 
longer, Trix? Your ^oul is white and pure. I — I — some- 
how feel more at rest when near you.” 

Eeadily Trix consented, going and sitting on a little 
ottoman at the woman’s feet, and looking pityingly up 
into her large, hollow eyes, with their bitter heart-break. 

A silence fell over the two so vitally connected with each 
other — whose lives after long years had converged over 
that gulf of sin dug by the one now so madly yearning for 
reparation. 

Ah, me! the tangled web of life; the blind strugglings; 
the bitter yearnings; the eager, outstretched hand after 
the madly coveted boon that seems ever eluding us. 

Had but some power whispered the truth to those two 
sitting there in that solemn silence, broken only by the 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 177 

hoarse roar of the surf upon the cliffs and the low, savage 
snarling of the dog outside, whose keen instinct had ap- 
prised him of the hidden presence of the enemy. 

At last Trix’s gentle voice broke the hush. 

Are you feeling worse to-night?^' she inquired of her 
mute and motionless companion. 

“ Not physically; but my heart seems bursting — my 
soul struggling from me. Oh, Trix!^^ cried June, with a 
sudden air of wildness, “you are good and fearless; no 
great stain lies at your soul’s door. Tell me, do you think 
there can be atonement for a sin that devils might shrink 
from?” 

Trix, with her fearless white soul, shrunk appalled for a 
moment before this revelation of a moral darkness whose 
depth she could only vaguely realize. 

But before she could speak, the other, with a terrible 
effort, had recovered a semblance of self-possession, and 
again addressed her: 

“ Will you sing me something? It may ease me a little 
here ” — one transparent hand convulsively clinched upon 
her heart. “ Sing me the piece you sung last evening: 
‘ AV"eary,’ you called it.” 

Trix was strangely, solemnly impressed by the other’s 
manner, but she controlled her emotion, and lifting her 
glorious young voice sung the pretty, plaintive song asked 
for, the sad strains and melancholy words floating far out 
of the open window and across the trackless, treacherous 

“ Weary of living, so weary, 

Longing to lie down and die; 


sea: 


178 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


To find for the sad heart and dreary 
The end of the pilgrimage nigh. 

Weary, so weary of wishing 
For a form that has gone from my sight, 

For a voice that is hushed to me ever, 

For eyes that to me were so bright. 

“ Tired, so tired of drifting^ 

A- down the dark stream of life. 

Tired of breasting the billows— 

The billows of sin and strife. 

Wishing and waiting so sadly 
For love that was sweetest and best. 

Willing to die; oh! so gladly. 

If death would bring quiet and rest.” 

As the inexpressibly tender, yet rich, full voice floated 
out on the salt dusk and silence of the lonely midnight, 
June’s hand involuntarily sought her throat as though to 
still a convulsive agony, and her large eyes, turned sea- 
ward, were distended with a hopeless misery. 

' Trix regarded her in a great helpless pity. From the 
girl herself had briefly vanished every trace of her proud 
willfulness and pixy-mischief, as she sat there confronting 
this broken, mysterious life across which “ The End ” 
was so soon to be written; and slowly into her brilliant, 
dusky eyes welled large tears of heavenly pity. 

At last June’s tones sundered the stillness. 

“ One more tune,” she muttered. Broken-hearted and 
dying, it seemed as though the girl’s sweet voice was the 
one thing that could soothe and solace her w6ary, suffering 
spirit. 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-IIOUSE LASS. 


179 


“ Let it be a hymn this time; after that I will go to 
bed.^^ 

Trix thought a moment, then lifted up her clear young 
voice in that sweetest of hymns: 

“ Abide with me! fast falls the eventide. 

The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide; 

When other helpers fail, and comforts flee. 

Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me!” 

As the hymn ended June’s head for a moment fell for- 
ward upon her breast; her pale lips moved. 

“ Help of the helpless!” It was a low, broken whisper, 
but perha2)s bishops’ eloquence never held a more desper- 
ate prayer for pardon and sustenance, and sure it is the 
cry of this woman’s need reached the great white throne 
of Mary’s Son. 

Outside, behind the pile of cordage, reclined the high- 
bred, soft-handed murderer. 

As the broken words of the woman he had wronged and 
was waiting to slay fell upon his ear, no pity moved him, 
no saving trace of weakness showed in his olive-hued face 
that was perfect as an old-time splendid cameo. 

The woman was in his way, she must go — no power 
could save her, and no memory of another time awoke 
even a tinge of remorse in his most remorseless nature. 

June rose dizzily from her chair, and waited while Trix 
closed the windows and pulled to the door leading to the 
shed. 

But the key was missiug — she could not lock it as usual. 

Well, no matter, the shed was securely fastened the 
key must have dropped down and been swept out; she 


180 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE - LASS. 


would search for it in the morning. Heaven help us! 
what great events every day hinge on such trifles as this 
could we poor mortals but see them. 

This done, the two moved toward the spiral stairway. 

At the steps the younger paused and glanced back thought- 
fully at the outer door of the. light-house. 

“ What can ail Lion? 1 never knew him to act so be- 
fore she exclaimed. 

The dog that all the evening had been giving vent to 
those low, guttural snarls was now tearing violently at the 
door, a perfect tempest of savage growls making dreadful 
the night. 

Trix returned, and as she unbolted and opened the door, 
the beast sprung in the length of his chain, every hair on ^ 
his huge back bristling, his blood-shot, menacing eyes 
sweeping the interior of the small living-room. 

Heaven help Armand St. Clair if the time ever came 
when he should be at the mercy of this dumb yet most 
sagacious foe of his! 

“ You see! There is nothing, you dear old idiot,” re- 
marked Trix to her canine comrade. How, then, be so ♦ 
kind as to step out and go to bed. Ho one but an utterly 
dissipated, characterless dog would be about at this hour.” 

But it took a more resolute command than that to move 
the faithful brute, and when he was once more left 
alone he disdained his kennel, which stood by the door, 
and spread himself upon the threshold, where he lay all 
through that night of horror. 

Inside, the woman had moved on up the steps. At the 
top, J une, panting for breath, stopped and looked long 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


181 


and fixedly into the lovely awed face of Captain Vorn’s 
first mate. 

“ Good-night/^ she said, “and God forever bless you 
for your kindness to a broken-hearted woman. 

And then they parted, never more in this world to look 
into each other’s eyes. 

God save the dark but repentant soul that passed away 
with that night! 

CHAPTER XXL 

Ih the “ wee sma’ hours ” of the morniug, while the 
earth still slept and silence lay over the lUid and the sea, 
what was it that suddenly roused the little ex-mate of the 
schooner “ Trix,” and brought her to a sitting posture in 
her white nest, where she had lain soft and still like a little 
dormouse? 

What wild sense of horror was over her that drove the 
blood from her face and sent a chill through all her warm 
limbs? 

She sat up listening intently, for what, she could not 
tell. 

All was still; no sounds of life save those deep, angry 
growls of the dog outside broke the hush. 

“ What ails me? I must have been dreaming,” she 
muttered, yet so great and horrible was the dread upon 
her that she sprung out upon the floor and stood for a 
moment trembling and bewildered in the center of the 
room. 

“ Perhaps something is wrong with Uncle Brian or 
Guilda,” she told herself, as, hastily throwing about her a 


182 


THE I.ITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


loose wrapper, she opened the door and stepped out into 
the narrow hall intersecting the second story of the light- 
house. 

Her little bare feet made no noise as she stole down the 
passage, and pausing at a certain door, noiselessly opened 
it and glanced within. 

It was the old light-keeper’s room, and by the aid of the 
full moon she saw him lying quietly upon his plain, clean 
cot, wrapped in the slumbers of the jnst. 

Withdrawiug, without disturbing her beloved comrade, 
she proceeded to Guilda’s chamber on the floor above. 

Here, too, th# occupant slumbered, and all was well. 

She had descended to the second floor, and was return- 
ing to her own apartment, when she thought of June. A 
thrill of horror instantly shot through her. 

Like a flash she received explanation of that tremulous 
sensation convulsing her; something was wrong with that 
poor, tempest-tossed soul who had sought her protection. 

No doubt of it remained in her soul. 

Indeed, she was so sure of it, that when she turned 
back, opened June’s door, and beheld the tall form bend- 
ing over the bed, upon which writhed in horrible contor- 
tions the flgure of the helpless woman, no surprise, noth- 
ing but the great and terrible suffocation of sheer horror 
seized her. 

The assassin stood with his back to the single window, 
through which streamed the yellow moonlight, and thus 
his face was in the shadow. 

j But Trix saw plainly the lithe, long flgure, and knew 
that it was the red-headed demon that had shaded the 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


183 


light the night the steamer foundered, and had cast this 
silent, mysterious woman across her life. 

It is strange how much surrounding circumstances have 
to do with our impressions. 

Seen amid the luxury of The Breakers, to Trix’s mind 
that figure now bending over the bed could have been no 
other than Armand St. Clair, the elegant, haughty, unso- 
ciable man of fortune. 

Here on the scene of that dread disaster, where the 
human fiend had first appeared to her, she knew it to be 
the man with whom she had spent those awful moments 
in the light-house tower, returned as that poor soul, his 
victim, had been sure he would return, to complete his 
ruin. 

'W^hatever be her failings, her caprices, her superstitions. 
Captain Vorn's first mate never yet lacked physical cour- 
age in dire emergencies. Now, without pausing to weigh 
the consequences to herself, or the hopelessness of the at- 
tack, she leaped upon the man as she had done that other 
night so long ago, and with her fierce, small hands strove 
to fight him o2 his victim. 

But what could her puny might avail against the 
trained strength of an athlete? 

For such was St. Clair, despite his fastidious elegance. 

Trix fought like a little panther-kitten. But the figure 
to which she tried to cling a dead weight might have been 
so much bronze for all the effect she produced. 

Those soft, sinuous hands never relaxed in their deadly 
clutch upon the victim^'s throat, the form never swayed 
save to keep the shadowed face in darkness. 


184 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


And now the convulsions of the form upon the bed were 
growing less violent. In the light of the moon, that fell 
straight athwart it the poor, murdered face upon the pil- 
low wore a livid look. The eyes were wide open and 
starting from their sockets. The lips were drawn back, 
showing the gleaming teeth fast clinched upon the swollen, 
blackened, protruded tongue. A little stream of dark 
blood trickled down the chin. 

It was the face of the dead 

Still clinging fast to the murderer, a deadly faintness 
seized Trix. She opened her dry, white lips to scream, 
but no sound was heard. She was literally stricken dumb 
with the horror of the tragedy. 

Another minute and those long, delicate, dark fingers 
thht were yet like bands of steel, fell away from the dead 
throat and closed about her shoulder. They wrenched her 
away from the bedside, out of the room of death, out into 
the narrow hall. 

Still mechanically Trix clung to her companion. Her 
little naked feet were planted upon his in her futile but 
brave struggle, her bare arms wreathed about his shoul- 
ders, her soft, lithe yet rounded form struggled to draw 
him downward with all the madness of desperation. And 
for a moment the man stood resistless in that unconscious 
embrace. 

Then, after an instant of inactivity, he for the first time 
that night showed emotion. 

His own fine form began to tremble. His arms, that 
had hung by his side until now, seized the throbbing figure 
clinging to him. 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


185 


Trix, still half fainting with horror, saw the strange, 
fierce fires of his eyes that seemed burning down into hers. 

Then with the unconscious violence with which the girl 
herself had precipitated herself upon him by June^s bed- 
side, he wrenched one arm from around her, and his hand 
sought his hip-pocket. In the next instant the touch of a 
cold steel muzzle was upon the girTs soft temple. 

Long ago he had told her that he should in time either 
love or slay her. His words were coming true. 

Yet there was still time enough for the strong, passion- 
ate, tempestuous temperament of the man to change in its 
hatred. 

Which would it he — love or murder? 

The violent heart-beats of that bosom upon which Trix 
lay in her trance of horror were growing fiercer. The pis- 
tol pressed harder upon her temple. 

Which would it be? 

The man stood motionless, save for that passionate 
vibration of his lithe, supple form, one arm thrown fierce- 
ly around the half-unconscious girl, the other pressing the 
deadly weapon to her throbbing temple. 

Which? 

One instant longer, while the fierce ungoverned passion 
of the tiger that lived in the man struggled with the tiger- 
ish lust of hate that had hitherto possessed him, and the 
die was cast. The pistol dropped from Armand St. Claires 
hand. 

Love had conquered. 


18 G 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


CHAPTER XXIL 

OifLT for a moment did that mad embrace crush Trix 
in her unknown captor's arms. 

Then he dropped her, sped down the stairs, and so on 
into the shed, where he leaped through the window by 
which he had entered, and was soon striding across the 
strip of beach toward the bay. Here, springing into a 
boat, he was soon sculling homeward. 

When he arrived at The Breakers, the house was dark 
and silent as the grave. The pleasure-party had long 
since returned. 

He admitted himself by a latch-key, and gained his suite 
of rooms without encountering a human being. 

He had little fear of being suspected of the murder at 
the light-house. •» 

He had given his man leave of absence for a couple of 
days, and he knew that Paula's respect for his wishes and 
almost secret fear of his irritable, haughty temperament 
would never permit her to send to his chamber for him 
when by his absence he had betrayed a wish to avoid her 
and the guests. So it was scarcely within the range of 
probability that his absence from The Breakers that fatal 
night would be known. 

The following morning broke bright and clear. 

Wan-faced and with dark circles under her eyes, the 
wretched Valerie joined her guests at breakfast; but with 
her the dainty meal, with every seasonable and unseason- 
able delicacy, was but a farce. 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


1S7 


With burning misery and mortification she had seen that 
her attempt to separate Felix Carew and her rival had 
been a failure — had indeed but served to bring the two 
more closely together, for she detected the passionate glow 
warming Felixes handsome gray eyes this morning, and 
rightly conjectured that love had triumphed over prudence 
and prejudice. He had resolved to stake his all on a 
woman's love, and win if he could. 

She had played her last card and lost. Ill, desperate, 
as soon as possible she crept away from her gay guests to 
a secluded spot in the spacious grounds, where she 
crouched like some suffering dumb thing. 

With his usual elegance ahd characteristic reserve, St. 
Clair had met and mingled with his associates, his dark, 
faultless face betraying no hint of his black crime of the 
night before or of the maddened passion that led to it. 

His chill, imperturbable exterior held well his secrets, 
though in the hours that had passed since his return from 
the light-house a desperate resolution had formed in his 
dark brain. 

As Valerie stole away to her pained solitude, his myste- 
rious, powerful eyes followed her, and soon, without chal- 
lenging attention, he strolled after and came upon her 
where she crouched in a little Gothic summer-house in a 
far corner of the grounds. 

She made a pretty but forlorn picture as she sat upon a 
rustic bench, her face sunk in her arms, the silken lengths 
of her snowy morning robe sweeping around her slender, 
drooping figure. 

“ Miss Valerie!" 


188 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


The girl started quickly and looked up as that mellow 
voice broke upon her cars. 

“ What troubles you? AYill no artifice again induce 
Miss Vorn to venture within reach of the strong-room 
door?’^ 

A swift, painful red mounted Valerie’s high-bred face 
at the merciless irony of that question which told her so 
plainly that the truth was known, and she rose precipitate- 
ly to her feet. 

Sc. Clair was regarding her closely. The pains and 
weaknesses of human nature had ever been a diversion to 
him. 

“ From what I have gathered from the conversation 
this morniug, I infer that your little attempt of last night 
was equally abortive. Miss Valerie, why did not you make 
sure that Carew was nowhere nigh when you playfully 
pitched your friend overboard?” ^ 

At that question Valerie sunk down in her seat again, 
as though her limbs had been paralyzed, her frightened, 
paling face lifted to her companion’s. 

“ How had this dreadful, silent man found out a secret 
that no one else suspected?” she was asking herself, 
wildly. 

In reality, it was but an easy matter for St. Clair to 
read human nature, and with his knowledge of Valerie’s 
love and resources, as gathered from the strong-room 
affair, to perceive her hand in the accident of the night 
before. Her countenance of frightened guilt now but con- 
firmed his suspicions. 

At last Valerie’s white lips moved: 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


189 


“ You will not betray me?’^ she whispered. 

“ No, certainly/^ answered St. Clair, that slow, slight 
smile vanishing and his bronzed face assuming the sphinx- 
like look characteristic of his deepest moods. “ Keep your 
seat. Miss Valerie; I have a matter to lay before you. 
Necessity and candor compel me to be abrupt. Pray^par- 
don me; you love Carew?’^ 

Valerie moved her pretty blonde head in assent. Her 
tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of her mouth. 

“You are aware that he loves Miss Vorn?’^ 

Again that mute sign of agonized acquiescence from the 
girl whose heart he was so mercilessly probing. 

“You wish — in fact have tried to get — Miss Vorn out 
of your way?’’ 

Valerie moistened her parched lips, but they would not 
do her bidding. Again she bent her head. 

St. Clair’s eyes swept piercingly about the place, and 
made sure that there were no eavesdroppers before he com 
tinned. 

“ The ‘ White Wings ’ is your property, I believe?” 

“ She is mine,” Valerie made answer, in dull, wretched 
wonder. 

“ Her crew is always on board?” 

“ A portion of them; the rest can be summoned at an 
hour’s notice.” 

“ Can you stock her lockers for a three months’ voyage 
at half a day’s warning?” 

“Y''es. ” Valerie was now looking at him with a kin- 
dling interest; instinct told her that these questions, pro- 
ceeding from this haughty man of few words, had a vital 


100 


THE LITTLE LIGHT'HOLSE LASS. 


significance. She waited breathlessly for what was to 
come. 

“ Your captain would obey you if you ordered him out 
on a voyage to the Mediterranean?’-’ 

“ He would ask nothing better. He is a thorough sea- 
man, and has as good and safe a craft as sails the high 
seas.” 

St. Clair took out his pouch and carelessly began rolling 
a cigarette; only the dazzling, hashing light in his long 
eyes betrayed the emotion he must necessarily have experi- 
enced under his front of ice. 

“ Very good,” he made cool answer. “ In that case I 
will undertake to remove Miss Vorn from your path. An 
indefinite cruise through the Mediterranean, 1 fancy, will 
reduce the young lady to a condition in which she herself 
will be ready to place an eternal barrier between her and 
Carew.” 

Valerie sprung to her feet, a glad, wondering, eager 
light had leaped to her pallid face. She was staring 
breathlessly at the calm, cool, inflexible man before her. 

“ You will take her away — out of my path?” she 
panted. 

“ Exactly.” 

One moment of exultation, then a vague apprehension 
stole iuto her mind. 

“But will not that be kidnapping and place us in the 
power of the law?” she exclaimed, anxiously. 

“ Hot if Miss Vorn is seen to voluntarily board the ves- 
sel, not if she leaves word for her people that she is going 
of her own free will,” replied St. Clair, carelessly. 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


191 


Valerie regarded him in a sort of awed admiration 
Was he not more devil than man, this silent, beautiful, 
dominant being beside her? 

“ But how is that to be accomplished?^’ she ventured to 
interrogate, while she told herself with a thrill of exulta- 
tion wha't a blessing it was for her that Armand St. Clair 
had come to The Breakers. 

“Easily enough: write a note this afternoon to Miss 
Voru, saying that you have sprained your foot on board 
the ‘ White Wings ’ and dare not be moved; you are dying 
of ennui; you beg your dear Trix to come to you. She 
will come. On board the yacht, she will go at once below; 
you are not there, 1 am. Thatds all. Miss Vorn will not 
leave that saloon save on one condition; that condition will 
leave you nothing to fear from any interference upon her 
part in your little affair with my friend Carew. ” 

“But the crew, will not they think it strange — grow 
suspicious?” she faltered. 

“ They will have little to do with it. At New York we 
will discharge them and ship a new crew. It all rests with 
the captain, and 1 am greatly mistaken, in my summing 
up of human nature, if that man’s conscience would ever 
be unpleasantly active when he was paid well to keep it 
quiet. He is a mercenary rascal, or there is no reading 
the human countenance.” 

“ He is,” answered Valerie, trembling with conflicting 
emotions. “ I believe money would buy him. It might 
take a large amount. But you— what will become of you? 
why do you take all this trouble for me?” 

“ I will remain with the girl!” 


192 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


“You.^^ • 

Half stupefied with amazement, Valerie stared at him. 
The mystery was too great for her to attempt to solve. 

For one moment she did ask herself if he, too, could be 
in love with Trix, who seemed turning all the masculine 
world topsy-turvy. 

But one would have as soon thought of connecting love 
with a marble statue as that tall, unbending, icy man, 
with the beautiful, flint-like face. And yet, what meant 
those great, hot, lurid flames that for the first time in all 
her life she saw leaping and hashing in his midnight eyes, 
those flames which, when contrasted with the utter im- 
movability of his dark, splendid face, sent a thrill of some- 
thing closely skin to terror through her? 

“ Do not attempt to solve the mystery; it will only be a 
waste of time,^’ observed St. Clair, that fugitive, icy smile 
touching his perfect lips. “You have only to say whether 
you approve of the plan and will do your share. 

“ I will do everything. By eight o’clock this evening 
the ‘ White Wings ’ will be ready, manned and stocked for 
her voyage, and Trix will be on board,”’ answered Valerie. 

In her jealousy and agonized yearning for Felix’s love 
no thought of her aunt, who lived with an equal despera- 
tion, assailed her. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

Trix sat in the little living-room of the light-house the 
evening after the murder, with a face more pale and sol- 
emn than ever it had been before. 

The lamp was already lighted, and its. flashes of pale 


THE LITTLE LIGHTrHOUSE LASS. 


193 


light, as they swept oat across the heaving waters, were 
gathering strength in the deepening gloom. Upstairs in 
the room where that deadly struggle had taken place less 
than twenty-four hours before lay all that was mortal of 
that poor, ill-fated mysterious 'creature whom she had 
known only by the name of June. 

In their isolated position in the light-house the facilities 
for taking the formal steps necessary in such a case were 
but poor, and the coroner and his men had not yet ar- 
rived, though a messenger had been sent with intelligence 
of the murder. 

Now as Trix sat alone by the window, with that shud- 
dering sense of horror heavy upon her soul that proximity 
to death always aroused in her. Captain Vorn stumped 
into the room. 

lie had been turning some seines upon the rocks. 

“ Here^s a note, mate, that Miss Valerie sent you,,! 
reckon; at least one of the servants from The Breakers 
gave it to me down by the rocks, he said, delivering up a 
dainty scented little affair, which, had he but known the 
truth, he would have flung into the sea and himself fol- 
lowed it, could he in no other way have kept it from his 
darling. 

Trix took the envelope rather listlessly and broke it 
open. She cast her eye over the note it inclosed, then 
jumped to her feet with an exclamation of dismay. 

“ Poor, poor Valerie she cried. “ How dreadful! 
She has broken her ankle. Uncle Brian, on board the 
‘ White Wings, ^ and is laid up. She begs me to come to 
her and spend the night aboard. Shall I go— do you care 


194 


TUE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


— shall you be lonely here with — with that upstairs?’^ and 
poor little superstitious Trix, with her lion heart, glanced 
shudderingly toward the stairway. 

“ Bless the girl, no!^^ exclaimed Captain Vorn to his 
first mate. “ l^m glad of the chance to get you away 
from the tower for the night. For though you are as good 
a sailor as ever trod a deck, you are a shameful coward at 
such times as this.^’ 

“ Ay, ay, sir,^^ admitted the mate, with a meekness 
born of the humiliating truth of his statement, as she pro- 
ceeded to get her bonnet and rubber cloak. 

In a few minutes the little figure was speeding down the 
beach, the great hungry, tumultuous breakers leaping and 
dashing toward her, as they had so often done before, their 
booming on the harbor bar sounding sadder than ever it 
had sounded before in the melancholy gloom of the briny, 
moist gloaming. 

She had made half the distance to the point where the 
yawl was to meet her and carry her across to the yacht, 
when a brushing touch upon her gown caused her to look 
down to see walking beside her the huge, gaunt body of 
the blood-hound. • 

She paused with a little exclamation. 

“ I did not tell you to come, Lion,^^ she said, in sur- 
prised indecision. 

The brute stood still. His large eyes, fierce to all th6 
world beside, were raised in mute pleading and affection to 
hers. 

That look conquered tender-hearted Trix. 

“ Dear, faithful ci''eature, you shall go!^^ she cried. 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


195 


“ You need some reward after the way you tried to warn 
me last night of the nearness of that devil, who must have 
been even then concealed about the place. If I had but 
listened to you, poor June might still have been alive.” 

Fully understanding every word that was uttered. Lion 
licked the little sun-tanned hand caressing his head, and 
the two comrades started onward. 

At the appointed spot the yawl was waiting, and they 
embarked; but the man who had been sent for her was a 
^foreigner who could speak but little English, and whom the 
captain of the “ White Wings ’’ had but recently shipped 
in the place of one of his crew that had been taken ill. 
So she could make no inquiries concerning Valerie. 

It took but a few moments to gain the vessel. 

As Trix sprung up the steps lowered for her ascent and 
helped up Lion, there was a general scattering of the crew 
as the latter came in sight, though they were all forward, 
and then for some distance away from the fierce brute that 
they held in such holy horror. 

A half smile flitted over Trix’s mobile lips as she beheld 
the general consternation the presence of her friend excit- 
ed, but in the next, instant she grew serious and wonder- 
ingly contemplated him. 

The instant the dog had touched the deck he had grown 
restless— had turned slowly about in a circle, with dilated 
eye and nostril, until now it had come to a stand-still, mo- 
tionless, but with a murderous eagerness in every quiver- 
ing limb, his muzzle pointed to the companion-way with 
the surety with which the needle seeks the pole. Every 
bristle stood erect upon its huge shoulders, and a succes- 


196 THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. ^ 

sion of those low, terrifying growls broke from its blood- 
red mouth. The brute’s hue instincts had apprised him 
of the nearness of his foe. 

Years afterward, when they had grown gray- headed 
men, some of the crew told to their grandchildren how the 
dog stood now like a black tragedy in their midst, his 
flaming blood-shot eyes holding a menace of the death that 
was hanging over them, with the little lovely figure beside 
him, while the moonlit, quivering sea danced and sparkled 
all about, and sounds of distant music floated from the 
land and mingled with the rhythmic ebb and flow of th^ 
waves. 

Aft there w^as no one visible but the captain, who now 
approached toward Trix, keeping a cautious Oye to her 
companion, who just then was looking capable of dispos- 
ing of every creature on board. 

“ Y"ou are to go below at once. Miss Vorn,” he said, 
civilly, though he looked exasperated beyond measure at 
the presence of Lion. 

“ Ay, ay, sir,” answered Trix, too thorough a sailor not 
to give the customary salute to the superior officer. 

“ But the dog — what shall you do with him?” inquired 
the official, now with some acerbity. 

“ Well, you see, he would come. Captain Donald,” ex- 
plained the ex-mate of the schooner “Trix,” lifting her 
charming face wdth a conciliating smile that might have 
turned the head of a misanthrope to the dark, sinister 
countenance of the officer. “ And when 1 found it out I 
was too far to turn back, and I hated to send him alone, 
and he is such a darling that 1 like to oblige him when I 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


197 


can, and he made so ihany promises of good behavior and 
begged so hard to come — Hi, down, sir, down, down! 
What is the matter with you now?^-^ 

The latter fierce outburst was called forth by the dog, 
who, with an appearance that was truly terrible, had 
leaped toward tlie richly carpeted steps of the companion- 
way and would have dashed down them had not his mis- 
tress sprung after him and by the exertion of her utmost 
will power compelled him to sink down upon the floor, 
where he crouched in a submission that seemed as danger- 
ous and uncertain as the thin crust over the volcanoes 
crater. 

“ The. matter seems to be that your ‘ darling ^ has been 
suddenly seized with a desire to eat somebody up,^^ dryly 
observed the captain, who, at the savage lunge of the dog, 
had speedily transferred himself some distance away. 

“ 1 donT know what ails him,^^ gasped Trix. “ Do 
pray excuse him. Captain Donald, he is seized with such 
strange spells of late. If you will let me, I will put him 
in .the hold while I am on board. 

“ You canT put him there none too soon for my pleas- 
ure,^^ replied the captain, grimly, which forthwith Trix 
proceeded to do, not without every possible j)rotest from 
the faithful and sagacious beast striving so hard to save 
her. 

Then she hurried aft, and descended the companion-way.. 

As the little figure disappeared, the captain, with a 
strange look, turned away and joined his men. 

Her whole soul filled with anxious apprehension for 
Valerie, and utterly unconscious of the awful trap that 


198 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


had been set for her, and into which she had walked 
blind-folded, Trix rushed down into the cabin, then paused 
involuntarily. 

The splendid saloon stretched before her with its softly 
cushioned divans and gleaming mirrors, its frescoed ceiling 
and darkly polished floor and hand-painted, paneled par- 
titions, but nowhere was there any evidence of the presence 
of ladies. 

“ She must be in her state-room,^' muttered Trix. 

At that instant a gliding movement and a clicking 
sound behind her attracted her attention. 

She wheeled about to behold, standing in the soft, mel- 
low glow of the wax tapers, a tall, willowy form with a 
face of dark, rich splendor that she knew but too well. 

“ Mr. St. Clair!" she exclaimed, in tones of anger. 
“ Why have you locked the doorj and where is Valerie?" 

Even at this supreme moment of his life, the man's 
splendid self-control did not utterly fail him. There was 
little in his appearance to hint of the emotion that ’^as 
consuming him. 

“ I desire you to unlock that door immediately," con- 
tinued Trix, imperiously, turning and walking toward the 
door of Valerie's state-room. 

She had scarcely taken half a dozen steps when St. 
Clair's voice, clear, flute-like, drove the blood back from 
her heart. 

“ Hold! you will not find Miss Dyncourt there; she is 
not on board. She is home at the present moment, en- 
tertaining her guests," he said, calmly. 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


199 


Trix wheeled upon him, her large, angry eyes looking 
an indignant wonder into his. 

“ Do not lie,^^ she said, contemptuously, “ 1 know 
that Valerie is on board, for I got a note from her, bidding 
me join her. If you have her locked up for any purpose 
of your own, I warn you you can not keep me from her; I 
will go there and rescue her. 

Poor child! Even yet she did not dream that the mystery ' 
with which she now felt the very air was pregnant threat- 
ened or was in any way connected with her. 

It was Valerie, the traitress, the false friend, the Judas 
who had sold her, for whom her loyal heart feared. 

But even as she spoke a tremor ran through the noble' 
yacht. Her whistles blew, there was a sound of tramping 
feet overhead, a creaking of cordage, as she began to plow 
the waves. 

“ Where are we going? — what does it mean?’^ exclaimed 
Trix, for the first time noticing that strange element in 
her companion’s hot eyes that hitherto in their acquaint- 
ance had only looked' upon her with something perilously 
close to hatred. 

“We are starting on a trip to the^ Mediterranean — the 
length of our stay is indefinite, and depends upon you. 
But we are off, and no amount of rebellion, of screaming, 
of tears, will avail you,” he said, still in a tolerably com- 
posed voice. 

Trix was staring at him with large eyes of horror, andja 
shudder began to creep through her small, exquisite form. 

“ You must be mad,” she uttered at last. “ Where is 
Valerie? I will not be trifled with.” 


200 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


A low, strained, unnatural laugh broke from the des- 
perate man; for the first time his voice was hoarse and 
reckless. - 

“ God! There is no trifling about me,"” he half panted. 
“ When you know all you will find that there is an ear- 
nestness in this desperate business. Believe me when I 
tell you that Miss Dyncourt is at The Breakers, and that 
you are the only lady on board. 

At this intelligence, with its vague but awful signifi- 
cance, Captain Vorn^s first mate reeled a little, as if she 
had suddenly grown dizzy, and put up one hand to her 
throat; but in the next instant she pulled herself together, 
and her flashing eyes covered the splendid, desperate speci- 
men of manhood before her as if he had been a worm 
groveling at her feet. 

“ And Valerie^s letter?” she demanded, in a tone as 
clear and steady as a bell, though she was white as death. 

“Was but a little fiction that Miss Dyncourt kindly 
lent herself to in order to assist me in getting possession of 
you. There is nothing whatever the matter with that 
young lady.” 

“Coward — fien^! ’Why have you dared to do this 
thing?” she panted. 

How like tinder to flames was the girTs fiery, untamed 
loveliness to the man’s passion as she stood there, her 
face white as death, her blood-red lips quivering, her large, 
luminous eyes dilating with fury, and her small, copper- 
black head thrown back like a young fawn’s! 

“ I have done it because 1 love you,” he made tremu- 
lous answer, his eyes dwelling upon her face in a passion- 


THE iiTTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


201 


ate, devouring look. “ Do not give utterance to the world 
of scorn and hatred that lies in your eyes,’^ he continued, 
between his cruel white teeth; “ I know it all too well. 
If 1 did not, think you 1 would have taken this desperate 
measure of getting possession 5f you? But I know you; 1 
know the strength of that will of yours, that never yet, in 
you or any of your race, was ever broken, and I knew that 
nothing but force could make you mine — so force it shall 
be!^^ 

Was ever mortal face so white before as that of Captain 
Vorn^’s first mate? 

“ I do not know what you mean,^^ she hissed, in a voice 
exactly like his own; “ but you must not attempt any 
force with me!^^ 

“ As to force, I mean that, whether you will or not, you 
shall be my wife. Do not think that I shall have any con- 
science — any scruples in the matter — for I shall not. Do 
not think that I dare not avail myself to the uttermost of 
the advantage over you that my superior strength gives 
me, for I will. I will hold you in my arms while the 
magistrate makes you mine, and by high Heaven I swear 
that 1 will never release you until you have resigned your- 
self to what will have happened!’’ 

As his voice died away on the waveless air, a kind of 
choking breath broke from Trix’s ashen lips, that were 
dry and parched as dust. 

“ Even then 1 would find a way of escaping from you,” 
she muttered, in a hoarse, fierce tone that one would deem 
impossible from this soft, young thing that he so madly 
coveted. 


202 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


Face to face they stood, both soft, silken, glossy, in 
their black, panther-like beauty — the same hot blood 
coursing like lava floods through their swollen veins — the 
same nature showing in thejr colorless, set faces — the same 
fierce, unbending will looking out of their desperate eyes, 
with only*this difference between them — the man’s soul 
aflame with passionate love, the girl’s consumed with as 
unconquerable hate. 

As St. Clair stood looking at her, this little dusky thing 
whom he yearned for so madly, the softness and the 
languor of love touched him, and into his countenance 
stole a dazzling softness. The desperate yearning for her 
love had humanized him, as it would have done for all 
time, had Fate but granted this boon which was the first 
for years that life had denied him. 

“ Trix — my Trix!” the whisper, love-laden, passion- 
heavy, thrilled from his quivering lips with a sort of lotus 
charm that struck terror to the girl’s soul, even while she 
stood as one fascinated by the dazzling splendor of his 
transformed face. 

“ Let this strife between us cease, let love conquer. Be 
to me my soul, my heaven. Trix, your heart could never 
be the hell of passion, the seething vortex of love that 
mine is; but such as you have, you cold, proud child, give 
to me. I am starving as no beggar ever starved — perish- 
ing at your feet, to be fed and warmed by your love. 
Trix, you who can make the earth all things to me — who 
can make my life one dream of rapture, have mercy, and 
give your love for food for my famished passion.” 

For the moment he was human; for the moment only 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 203 

the sweet tenderness, the delicious yearning of love lived 
in him; for the moment his evil fell away from him, 
though the blood brand upon his soul could never be 
erased, and he yearned for a reciprocal passion, though the 
denial of it would but render more savage his mad deter- 
mination to invoke violence in securing the object of his 
passion. 

Trix recoiled from his outflung arms; then in the next 
instant a wild cry broke from her, and with her ashen face 
filled with various emotions she leaped toward him. 

For there on one of the white wrists extended toward 
her, and from which the gesture had displaced the cuff, 
was the circular-shaped livid scar where her teeth had met 
that awful night that the steamer was wrecked. 

“ Foiled!'’^ she shrieked, in a perfect madness of wrath 
and horror. “I see it all now — I know you now. Oh, 
God! save me from this red-handed murderer! You are 
the devil who wrecked the ship!^^ 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

As the awful denunciation broke from the lips of the 
half-crazed girl, St. Clair’s arms dropped to his side and 
the color died in his face. 

For a moment a terrible silence followed — a silence 
broken at last by the slow, grim voice of the man. 

“ Ay, you know me now,” he repeated, steadily, “ and 
this better acquaintance will not be likely to inspire you 
with incredulity when I repeat my oath, that in less than 
twenty-four hours you shall be my wife through sheer 


204 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


force; for I see that my tenderer appeal to you has been in 
-vain. As to the past, the time may come when it will all 
be. explained. Until then you must be content to be mys- 
tified. It is sufficient for you to know that when we reach 
New York harbor we will be met by a magistrate, for 
whom Miss Valerie will have very kindly telegraphed, and 
who, by means of a generous fee, will be prepared to do 
his duty, no matter what your resistance, and make you 
Mrs. Armand St. Clair/^ 

“ Never-^never, you wrecker of ships and slayer of 
dying women, panted Trix, well-nigh delirious with ex- 
citement. “You may imprison me until 1 am old and 
gray, or you may some day take a fancy for pressing 
those blood-dyed fingers of yours in my throat and chok- 
ing my life out,'as 1 saw you do to poor J une, but you shall 
never make me live your wife. You could not hold me 
forever — you must release me in time, and the moment I 
should be free 1 would dash my brains against the first ob- 
ject at hand. ’’ 

As the fierce defiance was launched forth, St. Clair 
stood silent for a moment, a black fury making terrible the 
beautiful countenance so recently illumined by that won- 
drous love. 

“You are as utterly unmanageable as I, and that is say- 
ing much,’^ he at last said, slowly. “ And yet, if you were 
one whit less a deyil, you could never have infatuated me 
as you have. 1 tell you truly, no other woman has ever 
done what you have done — driven me mad with love. 
That nighty when our feud began with the darkening of 
the lamp — Trix shuddered and clinched her teeth hard 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


206 


ill an agony of recollection — “ 1 told you that I should 
either love or harm you. I knew it by the sheer instinct 
of prophecy. You little know what great and bitter cause 
there is for it to be the latter; but love has conquered, 
and love it shall be with me till the end of time. After 
which, you having been mine in the meanwhile, I will not 
shirk or fear the eternal reckoning. 1 will leave you now 
for awhile, and I tell you as your friend, you will do well 
to try to reconcile yourself to your position. What is to 
be, will be. Our fates are hewn out for us at the begin- 
ning, and there is no escaping the inevitable. 

Poor, blind mortal! With those words that held a sig- 
nificance for him that he little dreamed of, Armand St. 
Clair forever left the presence of the girl he so madly 
loved, and stepped forth to his doom. 

Left behind, his wretched prisoner heard him securely 
lock the door, and then — 

What was that hideous uproar outside — those wild 
curses, that succession of fierce growls, that heavy fall 
against the door that yet resisted it? 

For a moment, half paralyzed with horror, Trix ‘stood 
still where the fated man had left her; then the truth 
dawned upon her in all its ghastly awfulness; by some 
means the blood-hound had escaped, and, scenting its 
prey, had sped back and laid in wait for the last deadly 
battle. . 

But it must not be. 

Hideous as were St. Claires crimes, she must save him. 

With all her puny might she tore at the door, but it was 
securely locked, and the key in the possession of St. Clair, 


m 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


She sprung to the windows; here, too, did St. Clair’s cau- 
tion recoil on his own head, for they were all tightly 
barred and forbade the faintest hope of escape. And all 
this time that hideous, grisly pandemonium outside. 

A groan of horror burst from her ashen lips. 

“ My God, help me! what can I do.^” she panted. 

With the words she leaped back to the door, and, drop- 
ping upon her knees, was about to shout to the animal 
through the key-hole, when her glance by accident focus- 
ing that small aperture, the whole panorama of horror was 
revealed to her. 

Upon the floor of the anteroom lay the long, slender 
form of her lover and her foe, his lithe, graceful limbs 
convulsed in that last deadly agony, while full upon him 
lay stretched the huge, gaunt body of the dog, his teeth 
tight fastened in the mangled throat of his human enemy, 
while the right hand of that individual still had strength 
to thrust and turn a long, slender knife in the ghastly 
wound that it had already made directly under the left 
fore-leg of the dog. 

Shriek after shriek broke from the girl, and then all 
grew dark and still, and she dropped over in unconscious- 
ness. 

When she recovered from her swoon she found the cap- 
tain and his first mate bending over her with frightened, 
ghastly countenances, while a burning, tingling sensation 
in her throat, and a black bottle in the former’s hand, 
hinted of the means they had taken to restore her. 

She staggered dizzily to her feet, and the first object 
that met her view through the now open door was that 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


207 


horrible sight upon the floor outside. Locked in that last 
deadly embrace, the two foes lay stark and dead where 
they had fallen. 

It had been war to the death with them. 

With a shudder Trix staggered to another portion of the 
cabin where that hideous spectacle would not torture her 
senses. 

“How — how did it happen?^^ she gasped to her two 
companions. 

The awful turn events had taken showed the command- 
ing ofiScer of the “ White Wings that his only hope for 
escape from unpleasant complicity in kidnapping, which 
now would be thoroughly exposed, lay chiefly with Trix, 
who could clear him with almost a word, so his answer 
now was marked with the utmost respect, and for once 
was the truth. 

“ In some, as yet, unaccountable manner, the dog es- 
caped from the hold, and like a bullet shot aft, and down 
the companion-way. I was with the steward in the lat- 
ter^s room, and knew nothing of it. The crew were de- 
moralized by the dog^s presence, and scattered right and 
left, not daring to approach aft, believing that you would 
discover the brute and make things right. But almost at 
the very moment that St. Clair emerged from the saloon 
the dog must have gained the companion-way, and then 
followed the struggle. You will wish to return now to 
shore, Miss Vorn?'^ 

“ Yes— yes; as quickly as possible,^' gasped Trix, her 
two little shaking hands clasped before her starting eyes. 
“ That man deceived me — lied to me. I should never 


^08 


TiSE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


have come in the first place but for my thinking that Miss 
Dyncourt was ill and on board. 

And of a ^sudden hard lines showed about Trix^s beauti- 
ful lips; this last piece of treachery could not be ignored 
or misunderstood. Valerie was an enemy, and like so 
many accusing fingers the instances of the past by which 
the heiress had sought to mortify and injure her now 
sprung forth before her mind^s eye, to leave no room for 
doubt. 

“ You surprise me,'^ exclaimed the captain, in carefully 
simulated amazement. “ About noon to-day Miss Dyn- 
court came to me and told me to get ready immediately 
for a cruise in foreign waters. I asked no questions but 
obeyed her, and at seven o^clock this evening my yacht 
and crew were in readiness. About that time Mr. St. 
Clair came on board and told me that in a short time you 
would join him, and that when you arrived I was to send 
you directly below, which you will remember 1 did. That 
is all I know of this most shocking affair. 

And that was the story he persisted in and by which he 
prevented his share in the case from being exposed. Less 
than two hours later Trix, wild and hysterical, was sob- 
bing in Captain Vorn^s arms. 


CHAPTER XXV. ' 

“ Ahd so, after long years, the mystery of the past is 
cleared up, through the death of that villain St. Clair, and 
the papers being found upon his body. Ah, Trix! I was 
always sure that that woman who was carried to my house 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


209 


the night I picked you up was connected with your his- 
tory. How strange it is that when she returned to us a 
few weeks ago neither she nor I recognized each other. 

The speaker was Captain Vorn; he and his little mate 
sat in their old places by the light-house door. 

How beautiful was the morning after the dark tragedy 
of the night. 

Far away stretched the level, azure widths of the Atlan- 
tic, the yellow glory of the sun glinting across it, and 
above the not less cerulean dome of the smiling sky. 

High up through the hazy light on land reared the grim 
resisting walls of the light-house, in the tower above the 
great lamp resting from its night’s vigils, while a huge 
water-bird circling slowly about it looked a mere speck in 
its dizzy altitude. 

Who could connect this peaceful spectacle with the scene 
of wrath and storm that had ushered in that fatal night 
that had swept across the comrades’ lives the baleful 
shadow of Armand St. Clair and his victim? 

That victim had been removed from the light-house by 
the authorities and her body consigned to the grave, and 
St. Clair, overtaken by retribution, lay stifi and cold in a 
darkened room at The Breakers, while beside his bier wept 
the miserable Paula, even deprived in this dark hour of 
the poor comfort of knowing that her beloved had joined 
the “ great majority ” with his soul faithful unto her. 

A shade of unusual gravity and thoughtfulness was 
upon the faces of the two comrades, for they had just been 
left by a young lawyer who was numbered among The 
Breakers’ guests, and who was so impressed by Trix’s 


210 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


charms that he eagerly availed himself of the opportunity 
of ingratiating himself in her favor by imparting to her 
the news of the astounding revelation that a casual investi- 
gation of the packet of papers found on St. Clair’s body 
had brought about. 

Beyond all shadow of a doubt they established the iden- 
tity of Captain Vorn’s first mate, the waif cast up by the 
sea, with that of the daughter of Gerald St. Clair, whose 
life was lost years ago in the wreck of the ill-fated steamer 
“ Speedwell.” 

It was a turn of events, a fairy-like development that 
Trix, sitting for once voiceless and half stunned at her be- 
loved captain’s feet, could not as yet realize. 

“ And to think,” continued old Brian Vorn’s voice, 
now permeated with a certain mournfulness, that the 
little white skiff 1 picked up that morning after the great 
storm, half foundered on the sands, should turn out to be 
one of the world’s great ships, that by and by will sail 
away from the little humble harbor that has sheltered it 
for so many years. To think that I’ve lost my little mute, 
though the world has found a great heiress. Excuse me, 
mate, but — but it’s kind of strange yet, the thought of 
losing my best ofiScer. After awhile it may go easier.” 

Brian’s voice sunk into an uncertain silence, while 
he lifted one gnarled hand and brushed it across his eyes. 

The little mate was now roused from her^tupor-like 
silence and inactivity. , ' 

She sprung to her feet, she turned flashing eyes upon 
the one-legged old figure before her, she stamped her foot 
upon the ground, her lovely face the while as crimson as 


THE LITTLE LiGHT-HOUSfi LASS. 


211 


the pretty kerchief knotted gypsy-fashion about her heav- 
ing throat. 

“ Captain!"^ she cried, in an awful voice. 

“ Ay, ay, sir,’’ came the shaken response. 

For the time being the commanding officer and his mate 
had changed characters. 

“ You have been guilty of an unpardonable offense I” 
stormed the mate. “ You have casjt indignity and insult 
upon an assistant whose fidelity you have never had any 
cause to question. You have doubted her, sir. 1 am sur- 
prised at you. If you don’t apologize there will be mutiny, 
insurrection on board, sir, and if you dare to utter another 
word like what has passed 1 — 1 — I’ll string you up at the 
yard-arm, and — and — skin you alive, by the ocean’s 
ghosts! You hear me? Lift your face, sir, and look me 
in the eyes.” 

Slowly Brian lifted his bushy gray head, and when his 
countenance came in the focus of those flashing young eyes 
they made the discovery that it was drenched with tears — 
that its deep wrinkles and caverns were transformed into 
puddles of liquid grief. 

Presto ! Where was the first mate’s official dignity 
now? With a disgraceful abandonment of her high and 
mighty air, she burst into a tempest of tears, and, flinging 
herself upon the bosom of her beloved captain, clung to 
him in a transport of love and fealty that not all the 
wealth of the world could have affected. 

“My darling — my dearest — my best of fathers and 
mothers, and — and — everything else! Did you think for 
one moment— for one little second — that all this change 


212 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


would make any change between you and I?^’ was the 
burden of her cry. “ Do you think that any power on 
earth would ever part us — you and 1, who are all the world 
to each other? Ah! my dear — my dear! this is the first 
wrong you have ever done me. To think that I, who 
have been nursed and sheltered by your love — who owe 
everything to you — 1, your first mate — would leave you, 
even for the sake of life! What would all this great fort- 
une that they tell me is mine be to me without you? 
What would 1 want with it, if not to make you rich and 
powerful, and buy you splendid vessels for us to ‘ sail the 
seas over ^ in? Oh, my darling! our ship has come in at 
last, and I have nothing to give you of it, for the cargo is 
yours — all yours — and I am only your first officer, as 1 
have always been, ‘ and shall be to the end of time.^ 

For a moment the two comrades were strained convul- 
sively in each other ^s arms. Then ^ the elder relinquished 
his ewe lamb, staggered to his one foot, and cleared his 
throat with a sound that was like a trumpet. He was 
making a desperate effort to regain his official dignity. 

“ Mate!’’ he trumpeted at last. 

“ Ay, ay, sir!” responded the little mate, standing be- 
fore him with love-bathed, tender face and glistening eyes. 

“ It’s my opinion that we are a couple of fools,*and 
don’t deserve our good fortune — sniveling here like a 
couple of old women! Do you run down to the bay and 
get the boat out; 1 will bring the sail. I’ve noticed that 
the water is best for people in our disgraceful mood.” 

And so the matter dropped; but both knew that, as 
trouble cements hearts more closely together, so also had 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 

wealth in this instant united theirs beyond all possibility of 
severance — that they would be parted never more — never, 
until the faithful heart in which the girl had so long been 
cherished should go back to mother earth. 

Obeying her comrade’s orders, Trix sped away, but ere 
she had half gained the bay she ran into some one — some 
one with a tall, splendid figure and a handsome face, once 
cool and indifierent but now earnest and passionate as a 
second Sir Lancelot. 

“ Oh, Mr. Carew,’^ gasped Trix, blushing, as she recog- 
nized the gentleman against whom she had collided. 

With a splendid daring that well became him, Felix im- 
prisoned the little, fluttering figure in his arms, while his 
gray eyes in an agony of love and eagerness looked down 
into hers. 

Trix,” he panted, his broad chest rising and falling in 
an emotion that one would have believed impossible to him. 

And then and there Trix learned that she was all in aT 
to this man, whom she had secretly loved since the hour 
whe^p she *first saw him lying upon the beach in the lurid 
glow of the flaring tapers — learned of the lies that had 
poisoned his mind against her, and of his vast and bitter 
repentance which now spoke in his every word and glance. 

“ Trix, you are a great heiress now, and by the confes- 
sion of Valerie you are forever cleared of the weakness of 
which I believed you to be the impersonation; therefore, 
perhaps, if you did right now you would glory in my pun- 
ishment and turn from me in scorn. I deserve it; yet 
Heaven knows that I have suffered in the past weeks as 1 
never suffered before in all my life; and I believe 1 could 


2U 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


never have looked you in the face or dared beg for your 
love had it not been that before 1 had the wildest idea of 
the great good fortune in store for you, and while I still 
believed you to be the mass of deceit and frivolity that 
Valerie represented you to be. 1 threw prudence and 
prejudice to the winds and told you of my love. Trix, 
my princess, my heart’s idol, have you forgotten what 
passed between us in the water? Until then I had believed 
you hated me; then I — I — thought I saw something in 
your beautiful wet face that told me you at least were not 
indifferent to me. ,My beloved, was 1 mistaken?” 

With eyes of loving, eager investigation the impassioned 
lover sought to read the truth in that face that henceforth 
was to be his soul and heaven, but Trix had averted it, 
had in fact buried it upon his bosom and was half laugh- 
ing, half sobbing hysterically. But apparently lovers have 
a language of their own, for Felix seemed quite content 
with this inexplicable answer as he folded the little trem- 
bling figure more tightly in his arms, and with lips that 
shook as never they had shaken before, rained down kisses 
upon the dark head. 

When they had grown a little more rational, Felix drew 
from his pocket a slender gold hoop containing a single 
large diamond, which he placed upon her finger, and 
as the yellow sunlight fell athwart it, plainly showed in 
old-time characters that magic talisman Ad finem/^ 
where it was traced around the setting of the jewel. 

Trix started, and raised a face filled with emotion to her 
lover. 

“ Do not look so frightened, my darling,” he mur- 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


215 


mured. “ This was the betrothal-ring of your dead par- 
ents, and when ! found it on St. Claires body last night 1 
determined that, though it belonged to you, it should also 
seal our betrothal, if I could win you.^^ 

Eeverently Trix pressed to her lips the costly jewel that 
was an heir-loom of her race, and Felix followed her exam- 
ple. 

“Oh, Felix, she murmured, “how wonderful things 
turn out! To think that that mysterious, silent St. Clair, 
whom I always feared and disliked, should be of my blood. 
But 1 felt something of the kind when I met him in the 
cabin the afternoon of the yachting party, and saw this 
talisman engraved on the locket that I restored to him. 
Felix, she continued, vehemently, “ I believe the hardest 
of all that I have had to go through is the knowledge of 
Valerie’s treachery and deceit. Oh, Felix, I loved her, 
trusted her so!” and a great sob broke chokingly in her 
throat. 

Felix’s countenance grew grave. 

“ Think no more about her, my darling. Let her 
memory die out of your life even as she herself has van- 
ished. My little sweetheart, Valerie will trouble you or 
any one else no more.” 

Trix lifted a startled face. 

“ What do you mean?” she whispered. 

“ Keenest retribution has overtaken Valerie. Fearing 
an exposure of her share in the nefarious transaction of 
your kidnapping, the wretched girl committed suicide last 
night. She lived long enough to confess to me all her sin 
against you, and to profess repentance. ” 


210 


♦ 

THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 

For a moment Trix stood mute and motionless^ then 
she lifted a vroful \7hite face to Felix. 

“ Oh, Felix,’^ she sobbed, though her eyes were diy and 
glittering, “ take me away from this awful place where 
there has been nothing but death and horror for weeks 
past. Bury my poor, faithful, darling Lion, and then 
take me away.^^ 

“ My dearest, my life, I will,'^ answered Felix, with 
passionate tenderness. ‘ ‘ All this has been too much for 
you. You shall marry me to-day, and I will finish my 
negotiations for Silvester’s yacht, and will go away at once 
for a long, long cruise in foreign waters and to distant lands^ 
where my love and fresh scenes will wipe out the past.” 

“ And Uncle Brian?” 

“ Goes also, never more to leave us. Do you think, my 
darling, I would ever wish to part you from that noble 
man, to whom you owe so great a debt that a whole life- 
time’s devotion can never repay it? Cheer up, my little 
bonny bride! Bright sunshine lies before us all, and under 
faithful G Hilda’s and my nursing, your nerves will get 
strong again, and my sailor-wife, 1 suspect, will rule 'me 
with a rod of iron. ” 

“ Bless my soul! What is all this, mate? Stand up, 
sir. Give an account of yourself!” 

The words suddenly broke in upon the lovers’ elysium, 
and brought at least one of them to her senses. 

“ Ay, ay, sir,” said the guilty and shame-faced ex- mate 
of the schooner. Trix stood meekly before her superior 
officer, who without a moment’s warning had stumbled 
upon the astounding tableau. 


THE LITTLE LIGHT-HOUSE LASS. 


217 


But Felix came boldly to the rescue. 

“ It only means, sir, that your first officer has shipped a 
second mate for the voyage of life. Captain Vorn, Trix 
has promised to be my wife, if you will give your consent. 

Captain Vorn looked long and fixedly into the face of 
Felix Carew, which never flinched from the scrutiny. 
Then the two men struck hands in a friendship that was 
to be eternal. 

“You are welcome, sir,^’ was all the old man said; then 
he turned to the slender, lovely figure of the girl, with the 
sunlight seeming to concentrate in a dazzling halo around 
her dusky, tender face. 

“Mate, he^s not your assistant officer but your whole 
craft of life. See that you stand by your ship; float or 
sink with it; and if the storms come and the waves grow 
high, the closer do you stick together until the end of the 
voyage draws nigh and you sight the last great harbor of 
all.’^ 

“ Ay, ay, sir,"’ answered the little mate, solemnly. 


THE END. 


L A Feeling of Security 
r goes with every pack- 
I age of Pearline. It 
A secures cleanlinesswith 
\ little labor ; it secures 
' comfort in all house- 
work, and better work all 
over the house. It does 
//[(I away with danger as it 
does away with hard 
work. Pearline secures 
from harm any thing that 
can be washed. Anything can be washed easily 
and safely by securing Pearline. 

^ cf imitations which are being peddled from door 
door. First quality goods do not require such 
desperate methods to sell them. PEARLINE sells 
on its merits, and is manufactured only by 

2s8 tames PYLE, New York. 



ISSUED MONTHLY. 


PBICE 50 CENTS. 


The Calumet Series. 


NOW KEADY, 


No, 1. 

THE SHADOW DETECTITE; 

OR, 

THE MYSTERIES OF A NIGHT. 

By old sleuth. 


OLD SLEUTH THE DETECTIVE; 

OR, 

THE BAY RIDGE MYSTERY. 

By old sleuth. 

The above books are for sale by all newsdealers, or will be sent to any ad- 
dress, postage free, on receipt of price, 50 c»-nts, by the imblisher. Address 

GEOR&E MUNEO, Munro’s Publishing House, ^ 

(P. O. Box 3751.) 17 to 27 Vandewater St., New York. 


gie gcutj5che 

S'iacfjfolfleiibe 2Bevte finb in ber 5)eiitjci)eu Sibrort) eijd)ieuen: 


1 Der Kaiser, von Prof. G. Ebers. ;20 
a Die Soinosierra, von R. Wald- 
inuller 10 

3 Das Gelieimniss der alten Mam- 

sell, Roman von E. 3larlitt. .. 10 

4 Qmsisana, von Fr. Spielijap:en . 10 

5 Gartenlaubeu-Blutheu, von E. 

Werner 20 

6 Die Hand der Nemesis, von E. 

A. Kduijr 20 

7 Anitmanu’s Magd, von E, Mar- 

litt 20 

8 Vineta, von E. Werner 20 

9 Anf der Riimmingsburg, von M. 

Widdern 10 

10 Das Hans Hillel, von Max Ring 20 

11 Gliickanf! von E. Werner 10 

12 Goldelse, von E. iMarlitt 20 

13 Vater uud Sohn, von F. Lewald 10 

14 Die Wiirger von Paris, von C. 

Vacano 20 

15 Der Diamantsclileifer, von Ro- 

sentlial-Bonin 10 

16 Ingo nnd Ingraban, von Gustav 

Freytag 20 

17 Eine Frage, von Georg Ebers. . 10 

18 Im Paradiese, von Paul Hej'se. 20 

19 In beiden Hemispharen, von 

Sutro-Schiicking 10 

20 Gelebt und gelitten, von H. 

Wachenlmsen 20 

21 Die Eichhofs, von M. von Rei- 

ch eu bach 10 

22 Kinder der Welt, von P. Heyse. 

Erste Halfte 20 

22 Kinder der W’elt, von P. He 3 se. 

Zvveite Halfte 20 

23 Barfussele, von B. Auerbach... 10 

24 Das Nest der Zaunkduige, von 

G. Freytag 20 

25 Friihlingsboteu, von E. Werner 10 

26 Zelle No. 7, von Pierre Zacone. 20 

27 Die junge Frau, von H. Wa- 

chenhusen 20 

28 Buchenheim, von Th. von Varn- 

biiler 10 

29 Auf der Bahn des Verbrechens, 

von E. A. Kdnig 20 

30 Brigitta, von Berth. Auerbach. 10 

31 Im Schillingshof, von E. Marlitt 20 

32 Gesprengte Fesseln, von E. Wer- 

ner 10 

33 Der Heiduck, von Hans Wa- 

cheuhiisen 20 

34 Die Stui-mhexe, von Gififin M. 

Keyserling 10 

35 Das Kind Bajazzo’.s, von E. A. 

Kdnig 20 


36 D i e Briider vom deutschen 

Hause, von Gustav Frevtag. . 20 

37 Der Wilddieb, von F. Gerstacker 10 

38 Die Verlobte, von Rob. Wald- 


miiller 20 

39 Der Doppelganger, von L. 
Schiicking 10 


40 Die weisse Frau von Greifen- 

stein, von E. P’els 20 

41 Hans und Grete, von Fr. Spiel- 

hagen 10 

42 Mein Oukel Don Juan, von H. 

Hopfen 20 

43 Markus Kdnig, von Gustav 

Freytag 20 

44 Die schdnen Amerikanerinnen, 

von Fr. Spielhagen 10 

45 Das grosse Loos, von A. Kdnig 20 

46 Zur Ehre Gottes, von Sacher, 

und Ultimo, von F. Spielhagen 10 

47 Die Geschwister, von Gustav 

Freytag 20 

48 Bischof und Kdnig. von Mariam 

Tenger, uud Der Piratenkd- 
nig, von i\I. Jokai 10 

49 Reichsgrafin Gisela, von Marlitt 20 

50 Bewegte Zeiten, von Leon Alex- 

audrowitsch 10 

51 Um Ehre und Leben, von E. A. 

Kdnig 20 

52 Aus einer kleinen Stadt, von 

Gustav Freytag 20 

53 Hildegard, von Ernst von Wal- 

dow 10 

54 Dame Orange, von Hans Wa- 

chenhusen 20 

55 Johaunisuacht, von M. Schmidt 10 

56 Angela, von Fr. Spielhagen 20 

57 Falsche Wege, von J. von Bruu- 

Barnow 10 

58 Versuukene Welten, von W. 

Jensen 20 

59 Die AVohniingssucher, von A. 

von AA'interfeld 10 

60 Eine Million, von E. A. Kdnig.. 20 

61 Das Skelet. von F. Spielliagen, 

und Das Frdlenhaus, von Gu- 
stav zu Pntlitz 10 

62 Soil und Haben, von G. Freytag. 

Erste Halfte 20 

62 Soil uud Haben, von G. Freytag. 

Zweite Halfte 20 

63 Schloss Griiuwald, von Char- 

lotte Fielt 10 

64 Zwei Kreuzherren, von Lucian 

Herbert 20 

65 Die Erlebnisse einer Schutzlo- 

sen, von K. Sutro-Schiicking. 10 

66 Das Haideprinzesschen, von E. 

Marlitt 20 

67 Die Geyer-Wally, von Wilh, von 

Hillern 10 

68 Idealisten, von A. Reinow 20 

69 Am Altar, von E. Werner 10 

70 Der Kdnig der Luft, von A. von 

Winterfeld 20 

71 Moschko von Parma, von Karl 

E. Franzos 10 

72 Schuld und Siihne, von Evvald 

A. Kdnig 20 

73 In Reih’ und Glied, von Fr. 

Spielhagen. Erste Halfte. ... 20 


DIE DEUTSCHE LIBEAHY. 


73 In Reih’ nnd Glied, von Fr. 

Spielhajijeu. Zweitv liulfte.. 

74 Geheiniuisse einer kleineu Stadt, 

von A. von WintertVld 

75 Das Landhaus am Rhein, von 

B. Auerbach. Erste Hiilfte.. 

75 Das Landhaus am Rliein, vou 

B. Auerbach. Zweite Hiilfte. 

76 Clara Vere, vou Friedrich ISpiel- 

hapren 

77 Die Frau Biirgermeisteriu, von 

G. Ebers 

78 Aus eigener Kraft, vou Wilh. v. 

Hilleru 

79 Ein Kampf urn’s Recht, von K. 

Franzos 

80 Prinzessin Schuee, von Marie 

W iddern 

81 Die zweite Frau, vou E. Marlitt 

82 Benveuuto, von Famn- Lewald. 

83 PessimisCteu, vou F. von Stengel 

84 Die Hofdame der Erzherzogin, 

von F. vou Witzlebeu-Weu- 
delstein 

85 Ein Vierteljahrhundert, von B. 

Young 

86 Thiiringer Erzahluugen, von E. 

Marlitt 

87 Der Erbe von Mortella, vou A. 

Dom 

88 Vom armen egj-ptischen Mann, 

vou Hans Wachenhuseu 

89 Der goldene Schatz aus dem 

dreissigjiihrigeu Krieg, von E. 
A. Konig 

90 Das Fraulein vou St. 

ranthe, von R. von Gottschall 

91 Der Furst von Montenegro, von 

A. V. Winterfeld 

92 Um ein Herz, von E Falk 

93 Uarda, von Georg Ebers 

94 In der zwolften Stunde. von 

Fried. Spielhagen, und Ebbe 
imd Fluth, von M. Widdern.. 

95 Die vou Hohenstein, von Fr. 

Spielhagen. Erste Hiilfte. .. 

95 Die von Hohenstein, vbn Fr. 

Spielhagen. Zweite Halfte. . 

96 Deutsch und Slavisch, von Lu- 

cian Herbert 

97 Im Hause des Commerzien- 

Raths, von Marlitt 

98 Helene, von H. Wachenhuseu, 

und Die Prinzessin von Portu- 
gal, von A. Meissner 

99 Aspasia, von Robert Hammer- 

ling 

100 Ekkehard, v, Victor v. Scheffel. 

101 Ein Kampf um Rom, von F. 

Dahn. Erste Halfte 

101 Ein Kampf um Rom, von F. 

Dahn. Zweite Halfte,. 

102 Spinoza, von Berth. Auerbach. 

103 Von der Erde zum Mond, vou 

J. Verne 

104 Der Todesgruss der Legionen, 

von G. Samarow' 

105 Reise um den Mond, von Julius 

Verne 



106 

20 

107 

10 

107 

20 

107 

20 

108 

10 

109 

20 

110 

20 

111 

20 

112 

10 

113 

20 

114 

10 


20 

114 

10 

115 

20 

116 

10 

117 

20 

118 


119 

10 

120 

20 

121 

10 

122 


123 

20 


10 

124 

20 

125 

10 

125 

20 


20 

126 

10 

127 

20 

128 

10 

129 

20 

130 

20 

131 

20 

132 

20 

133 

20 

134 

10 

134 

20 

135 

10 



Fiirst und Musiker, von Max 

Ring 20 

Nena Sahib, von J. Ketcliffe. 

Erster Band 20 

Nena Sahib, von J. Retclifte. 

Zweiter Baud 20 

Nena Sahib, vou J. Retcliffe. 

Dritter Band 20 

Reise uach dem Mittelpuukte 

der Erde, von J. Verne 10 

Die silberue Hochzeit, vou S. 

Kohn 10 

Das Spukehaus, vou A. von 

Winterfeld 20 

Die Erben des Wahnsinns. von 

T. Marx 10 

Der Ulan, von Job. vau Dewall 10 

Um hohen Preis. vou E. Werner 20 

Schwarz walder Dorfgeschich- 
ten, vou B. Auerbach. Erste 

Halfte 20 

Schwarzwiilder Dorfgeschich- 
ten, vou B. Auerbach, Zweite 
Halfte 20 


Reise um die Erde, vou Julius 

Verne 10 

Casars Ende, von S, J. R., 


Auf Capri, von Carl Detlef. . .. 10 

Severn, von E. Hartuer 20 

Ein Arzt der Seele, vou Wilh, 

von Hilleru gO 

Die Livergnas, von Hermann 

Will fried iQ 

Zwanzigtausend Meilen tinterm 

3Ieer, von Jul, Verue 20 

Mutter und Sohn, von A. Godin 10 

Das Haus des Fabrikanten, von 

G. Samarow 20 

Bruderflicht und Liebe, von L. 

Scbiicking 10 

Die Rbmerfahrt der Epigonen, 
von G. Samarow. Erste 

Halfte........ 20 

Die Romerfahrt der Epigonen, 
von G. Samarow. Zweite 

Halfte 20 

Porkeles und Porkelessa, von J. 

Scherr 10 

Ein Friedensstorer, von Victor 
Bliithgen, und Der heimliche 

Gast, von R. B.vr 20 

SchOne Frauen, von R. Edmund 

Hahn 10 

Bakcheu und Thyrsostrager, 

von A. Niemann 20 

Getrennt, Roman von E. Polko 10 

Alte Ketten, Roman von L. 

Scbiicking 20 

Ueber die Wolken, von Wilhelm 

Jensen 10 

Das Gold des Orion, von H, 

Rosenthal-Bonin 10 

Um den Halbmond, von Gr. 

Samarow. Er.ste HSlfte 20 

Um deu Halbmond, von Gr. 

Samarow'. Zweite Halfte 20 

Troubadour - Novellen, von P. 
fleyse 10 


DIE DEUTSCHE LIEEARY. 


3 


136 Der Schweden-Sciiatz, von H. 

Wachenhiisen 20 

137 Die Bettlerin voin Pont des 

Arts und Das Bild des Kaisers, 
von Wilh. Hautf 10 

138 Modelle. Hist. Roman, von A. 

von Wiuterfeld 20 

139 Der Krie{? um die Haube, von 

Stefauie Keyser 10 

140 Numa Kouniestan, von Al- 

phonse Daudet 20 

141 Spatsommer. Novelle von C. 


vou Sydow, und Eiigelid, No- 
velle von Balduiu lldllhausen 10 

142 Bartolomaus, von Bruseiiaver, 

und Musma Cussalin, Novel- 
len von L. Ziemssien 10 

143 Ein p^emeuchelter Dichter, Ko- 

miseher Roman von A. von 
■\Vinterfeld. ErsteHalfte 20 

143 Ein i^emeuchelier Dichter, Ko- 

mischer Roman von A. von 
Winterfeld. Zweite Hiilfte. . . 20 

144 Ein Wort, Neuer Roman von G. 

Ebers 20 

145 Novellen, vou Paul Heyse 10 

146 Adam Homo in Versen, von 

Paludau-Muller 20 

147 Ihr einziger Bruder, von W. 

Heimbur^ 10 

148 Ophelia, Roman von H. von 

Laukenau 20 

149 Nemesis, von Helene von Hulsen 10 

150 Felicitas< Histor. Roman von F. 

Dahn 10 

151 Die Claudier, Roman von Ernst 

Eckstein 20 

152 Eine Verlorene, von Leopold 

Kompert 10 

153 Luerinsland, Roman von Otto 

Roquette 20 

154 Im Banne der Musen, von W. 

Heimburgr 10 

155 Die Schwester, v. L. Schiicking 10 

156 Die Colonie, von Friedrich Ger- ^ 

157 Deutsche Liebe, Roman von M. 

Muller 10 

158 Die Rose von Delhi, von Fels. 

Erste Halfte 20 

158 Die Rose von Delhi, von Fels. 

Zweite Halfte ... 20 

159 Debora. Roman von W. Muller. 10 

160 Eine Mutter, von Friedrich Ger- 

stacker 20 

161 Friedhofsblume, von W. von 

Hillern 10 

162 Nach der ersten Liebe, von K. 

Frenzel 20 

163 Gebannt und erlost, von E. Wer- 

ner : j' 

164 Uhlenhans, Roman von Fried. 

Spielhagen 20 

165 Klytia, Roman von G. Taylor... i-0 

166 Mayo. Erzahlung von P. Lindau 10 

167 Die Herrin von Ibichstein, von 

F. Henkel 20 

168 Die Saxoborussen, von Gr. Sa- 

marow, Erste H&lfte 20 


168 Die Saxoborussen, von Gr. Sa- 

marow. Zweite Halfte 20 

169 Serapis, Rofnau vou G. Ebers.. 20 

170 Ein Gottesurtheil, Roman von 

E. Werner 10 

171 Die Kreuzfahrer, Roman von 

Felix Dahn 20 

172 Der Erbe von Weidenhof, von 

F. Pelzeln 20 

173 Die Reise nach dem Schicksal, 

von K. Franzos 10 

174 Villa Schonow, Roman vonlv. 

Raabe 10 

175 Das Veriniichtuiss. vou Ernst 

Eckstein. Erste Halfte 20 

175 Das Vermachtuiss, von Ernst 

Eckstein. Zweite Halfte 20 

176 Herr und Frau Bewer, von P. 

Lindau 10 

177 Die Nihilisten, von Job. Scherr. 10 

178 Die Frau mit den Karfunkel- 

steiuen, von E. Marlitt 20 

179 Jetta, von George Taylor 20 

180 Die Stieftochter, von J. Smith. 20 

181 An der Heilquelle, vou Fried. 

Spielhageu 20 

182 Was der Todtenkopf erzahlt, 

von 5l. Jokai 20 

183 Der Zigeunerbaron, von M. 

.Jokai 10 

184 Himmlische u. irdische Liebe, 

vou Paul Heyse 20 

185 Ehre, Roman von O. Schubin.. 20 

186 Violanta, Roman von E. Eck- 

stein 20 

187 Nemi, Erzahlung von H. Wa- 

chenhu.sen 10 

188 Strandgut. von Joh. vou Dewall. 

ErsteHalfte 20 

188 Strandgut, von Joh. von Dewall. 

Zweite Hiilfte 20 

189 Homo sum, von Georg Ebers.. 20 

190 Eine Aegyptische Konigstoch- 

ter. von Georg Ebers. Erste 
Halfte ^ 20 

190 Eine Aegyptische Konigstoch- 

ter, von Georg Ebers. Zweite ?0 
Halfte 

191 Sanct Michael, vou E. Werner. 


Erste Halfte 20 

191 Sanct Michael, vou E. Werner. 

Zweite Halfte 20 

192 DieNilbraut, von Georg Ebers. 

Erste Halfte 20 

192 Die Nil brant, von Georg Ebers. 

Zweite Halfte 20 

193 Die Andere, von W. Heimburg. 20 

194 Ein armes Mtidchen, von W. 

Heimburg 20 

195 Der Roman der Stiftsdame, von 

Paul Heyse 20 

196 Kloster Wendhusen, von M . 

Heimburg 20 


197 Das Vermachtniss Kains, von 

Sacher-Masoch. Erste Halfte 20 

197 Das Vermachtniss Kains. von 

Sacher-Masoch. Zweite HSIfte 20 

198 Frau Venus, von Karl Frenzel,. 20 


4 


rHE DErTSCITE LTBEARY. 


199 Eine Vierielstiinde Vater, von 

F. W. Hackliincler 10 

200 Heiinatklans, voirE. Werner. . 10 

201 Herzeuskrisen, von AV. Heim- 

burj? 20 

202 Die Scinvestern, von G. Ebers.. 20 

203 Der Ejjoist, von E. Werner 10 

204 Salvatore, von E. Eckstein 20 

205 Lunipeniniiller.s Lieschen, von 

W. Heim burg 20 

206 Das einsatne Haus, von Adolf 

Streckfus 20 

207 Die verlorene Handschrift, von 

G. Freytag. Erste Halfte. . . 20 

207 Die verlorene Handschrift, von 

G. Freytag. Zweite Halfte. . 20 

208 Das Eulenliaus, von E. Marlitt 20 

209 Des Herzens Golgatha, von H. 

Waclienhusen 20 

210 Aus dem Leben meiner alten 

Freundin, von AV. Heimbnrg 20 

211 Die Gred, von G. IJbers. Erste 

Halfte 20 

211 Die Gred, von G. Ebers. Zweite 

Haifte 20 

212 Trndchens Heirath, von AVilh. 

Heimburg 20 

213 Asbein, von Ossip Schubin 20 

214 Die .A.lpenfee, von E. Werner.. 20 

215 Nero, von E. Eckstein. Erste 

Halfte 20 

215 Nero, von E. Eckstein. Zweite 

Halfte 20 

216 Zwei Seelen, von R. landau 20 

217 Manover- u. Kriegsbilder, von 

Joh. von Dewall 10 


218 Lore von Tollen, von AA’^. Heim- 

bnrg 20 

219 Spitzen, von P. Lindau 20 

220 Der Referendar, von E. Eck- 

stein 10 

221 Das Geiger-Evchen.von A.Dom 20 

222 Die Gdtterburg, von I\I. .Jokai 20 

223 Der Kronpi inz und diedeut.sche 

Kaiserkrone. von G. Freytag 10 

224 Nicht ini Geleise, von Ida Boy- 

Ed 20 

225 Camilla, von E. Eckstein 20 

226 Josua, eine Erzalilung aus bib- 

lischer Zeit, von G. Ebers 20 

227 Am Belt, von Gregor Saniarow 20 

228 Ileniik Ibsen's Gesainmelte 

AVeriie. Erster Band 20 

228 Henrik Ibsen’s Gesamraelte 

AA’erke. Zweiter Baud 20 

228 Henrik Ibsen’s Gesammelte 

AA’-erke. Dritter Band 20 

228 Henrik Ibsen’s Gesammelte 

Werke. Vieiter Band 20 


229 In geisiigerlrre, von H. Kohler 20 

230 Flammenzeichen. v. E. AA'erner 20 

231 Der Seelsorger, von A’.A^alentin 10 

232 Der Prasident.vonK.E.Franzos 20 

233 Erlachhof, Roman von Ossib 


Schubin 20 

234 Ein Hann, von H. Heiberg 20 

235 Nach zehn .Tahren, von Al. Jokai 20 

236 Um die Ehre. von Aloritz von 

Reichenbach 20 

237 Eine Hof-Intrigue, von C. H. 

von Dedenroth 20 

238 Grafin Ruth, von Emile Erhard 20 


Ein schoner ausgearbeiteter Catalog, enthaliend eine alphabetische List, 
wird von Georgb AIunro/uj* 10 cents an alle Adressen versevdf't. 

,,Die Deutsche Library" ist bei alien Zeitungshiindlern zu haben, Oder 
wird gegen 12 Cents fiir einfache Nummern. Oder 25 Cents ftir Doppelnum- 
niern nach irgend einer Adresse portofrei versendet. Bei Bestelluugeu durch 
die Post bittet man nach Nmnmern zu bestellen. 

<S)cor<jc ^TStlunro^ ^Dcrmre^eber^ 

1*, O. Box 37*11, 17 to ‘27 Vanclewater Street, New York. 


The New York Fashion Bazar Book of the Toilet. 

AYITH HANDSOME LITHOGRAPHED COYER. 

PRICE ‘25 CENTS. 

This is a little book which we can recommend to every lady for the Preserva- 
tion and Increase of Health and Beauty. It contains full direction.^ for all the 
arts and mysteries of personal decoration, and for increasing the natural 
graces of form and expression. All the little affections of the skin. hair, eyes, 
and body, that detract from appearance and happiness, are made the sub- 
jects of precise and excellent recipes. Ladies are instructed how to reduce 
their weight without injury to health and without producing pallor and weak- 
ness. Notliing necessary to a complete toilet book of recipes and valuable 
advice and information has been overlooked in the compilation of this volume. 


For sale by all newsdealers, or sent by mail to any address on receipt of 
price, by the publisher. 

Address GEOlfcGE MUNRO, Miinro’s Publisliiiig House, 

(P. O, Box 3751.) . 17 to 27 Vandewater Street, New York. 


I 


TO BE ISSUED SEPTEMBER 26, 1891: 

NO. 36, 

WILD AND WILLFUL; 

OK, 

TO THE BITTER END. 

BY LUCY RANDALL COMFORT. 

Price 25 Cents. 


NO. PRICE. 

1 My Own Sin. By Mary E. Bryan. 25 

2 The Rock or The Rye. (After 

“ The Quick or the Dead.” By 
T. C. DeLeon 25 

3 Shadow and Sunshine. By Adna 

H Lightuer 25 

4 Daisy Brooks. By Laura Jean 

Lib bey 25 

5 The Heiress of Cameron Hall. 

By Laura .lean Libbej' 25 

6 Marriafre. By Marjjaret Lee 25 

7 Lizzie Adriauce. By Margaret 

Lee 25 

8 Madolin Rivers. By Laura Jean 

Libbey 25 

9 Saints and Sinners. By Marie 

Walsh. 25 

10 Leonie Locke : or. The Romance 

of a New York Working-Girl. 

By Lam a Jean Libbey 25 

11 Junie's Love-Test. By Laura 

Jean I.ibbey 25 

12 Ida Chaloner's Heart; or, The 

Husband's Trial. By Lucy 
Randall Comfort 25 

13 Uncle Ned’s White Child. By 

Mrs. Mary E. Bryan 25 

14 All for Love of a Fair Facef or, 

A Broken Betrothal. By Laura 
Jean Libbey 25 

15 A Struggle for a Heart; or, Crys- 

tabel’s Fatal Love. By Laura 
Jean Libbey 25 

16 Little Rosebud’s Lovers; or, A 

Cruel Revenge. By Laura 
Jean Libbey 25 

17 Vendetta; or. The Southern Heir- 

ess. By Lucy Randall Comfort. 25 


NO. PRICE. 

18 Laurel Vane: or, The Girls’ Con- 

spiracjc By Mrs. Alex. Mc- 
Veigh Miller 25 

19 Married for Money. By Lucy 

Randall Comfort 25 

20 Muriel: or. Because of His Love 

for Her. By Christine Carlton 25 

21 Sworn to Silence; or, Aline Rod- 

ney’s Secret. B3' Mrs. Alex. 
McVeigh Miller 25 

22 The Bride of IMonte-Cristo. A 

Sequel to ” The Count of 
Monte-Cristo ” 25 

23 Love and Jealousy. Bj’ Lucy 

Randall Comfort 25 

24 Hazel Kirke. By Marie Walsh.. 25 

25 The Belle of Saratoga. By Luc}" 

Randall Comfoi-t 25 

26 Manch. By ]\lrs. MaryE. Bryan 25 

27 Her Second Choice. By Char- 

lotte i\I. Stanley 25 

28 Eve the Factory Girl. By Lucy 

Randall Comfort 25 

29 His Country Cousin. B.v Char- 

lotte M. Stanley 25 

30 Ruth the Outcast. By Mary E. 

Bryan 25 

31 Sold For Gold. By Mrs. E. Burke 

Collins 25 

32 A Misplaced Love ; or. The Rec- 

tor’s Daughter. By Charlotte 
M. Stanley 25 

33 Love at Saratoga. By Lucy 

Randall Comfort 25 

34 Estella’s Husband; or, Thrice 

Lost. Thrice Won. B}^ May 
Agnes Fleming 25 

35 The Little Light-House Lass; or. 

The World Well Lost. By 
Elizabeth Stiles 25 


Others will follow at short intervals. 


The above works are for sale by all newsdealers, or will be sent by mail on 
receipt of the price. Address 

GilORGS MUNRO, Munro’s Publishing House, 

(P. O. Box 3751.) 17 to 27 Vandewater Street, New York. 



2i^lnsist on having Pears’ Soap. Substitutes are 
sometimes recommended by druggists and shop- 
keepers for the sole purpose cf making more profit 
out of you. 



lyiUXRO'S PUBLICATIONS. 


The New York Fashion Bazar Book of the Toilet. 

WITH HANDSOME I .ITHOORAPHED COVER. 

PRICE ‘^5 CENTS. 

'I'liis is a little book which we cnn rHcoiiimend to every lady for the Preserva- 
tion and Increase of Health ami Beauty. It contains full directions for all the 
arts and mysteries of peisonal decoration, and for increasing the natural 
graces of form and expression. All the little affections of the skin, liair. e 3 'es, 
and body, that detract from appearance and happiness, are made the sub- 
jects of precise and excellent recipes. Ladies are instructed how to leduce 
tlieir weight without injury to health and without i)ro<incing pallor and weak- 
ness. Nothing necessary to a complete toilet book of recipes and valuable 
advice and information has been overlooked in tlie compilation of this volume. 


The New York Fashion Bazar Book of Etiquette. 

WITH HANDSOME LITHOGRAPHED COVER. 

PRICE ‘25 CENTS. 

This book is a guide to good manners and the ways of fashionable societj*, 
a complete hand-book of behavior: containing all tlie polite onservances of 
modern life; the Etiquette of engagements and marriages; the manners and 
training of children; the arts of conversation and polite letter-writing; invi- 
tations to dinners, evening parties and entertainments of all descriptions; 
table manners, etiquette of visits and public places; how to serve breakfasts, 
luncheons, dinners and teas; how to dress, travel, shop, and behave at hotels 
and watering-places. This book contains all that a lady or gentleman re- 
quires for correct behavior, on all social occasions. 


Model Letter-Writer and Lovers’ Oracle. 

AVITH HANDSOME LITHOGRAPHED COVER. 

PRICE 35 CENTS. 

This book is a complete guide for both ladies and gentlemen in elegant 
and fashionable letter-writing: containing perfect examples of every form of 
correspondence, business letters, love letters, letters to relatives and friends, 
wedding and reception cards, invitations to entertainments, letters accepting 
and declining invitations, letters of introduction and recommendation, letters 
of condolence and duty, widows’ and widowers’ letters, love letters for all 
occasions, proposals of mai riage, letters between beti'othed lovers; letters of 
a young girl to her sweetheart, correspondence relating to household man- 
agement, letters accompanying gifts, etc. Everv form of letter used in affairs 
of the heart wMll be found in this little book. It contains simple and full di- 
rections for writing a good letter on all occasions. The latest forms used in 
the best society have been carefully followed. It is an excellent manual of 
reference for all forms of engraved cards and invitations 

The foregoing works are for sale by all newsdealers, or will be sent to 
any address, postage free, on receipt of price, by the publisher. 

Address (xEOKGE MUNKO, Muiiro’s House, 

(P. O. Box 3751.) to 27 Vandewater Street, New York. 




p 


I 





lb 


• 


V;’, 


« I 





T 






V * ft 



t 

I 




4 



V • 


» 




.i-. ' 


<■ 



, V 



ft 


4 

T • 


1 


# 



1 


N J\4 


0 



J' 


t 


) 











% 






I 



# m ^ 



% 


I 



I 





t 


0 


i 


V 


4 




« 


k 


I 







f 







» 






• . ^)f '.. 

. •w . 

- ./•♦ • . ■ * 
• . • * 






I 


I 


y 




9 




I 


9 


g 





I 

i 4 

I 




1 


I 


t 




I 

I 






I 


« 

I 


\ 


<• 


I 



^ ■ 
Vi 









4^ >6 P 




■-.■-• ... ■•• ''■ ^ ■ Jpl-\ .tifijS 

It’ 

" ^ j*" » 


• ■ • ; f^ *- 


>, 

0*1;: SS' 


AJr 

•■* 



I I ^ * I •#. - • 'ii' K "t m%r * ■'. 

■*' '■ V-' *. ’^ti'^'- ' ‘'^ J >V^* v*®* " ■* 1 

^ * # if jm • •• i\ • ♦ ^ ^ > 

' r-> ' !,■ . •;.. :W\ -- ■ '. ■ ■' * - 

: '■'^V'-" u-r- ;"*0' -> !■ 

- ^ . :i L 




I 




r •‘■ 

• .IS- 


^ 4o 


A «^, 




ft 


■J -> 


• T 




*: • 


- 


■f ♦ 


i ► 


Jl* 


ss,'> 




• <» 


iv’ 


t A 






• « 




4^t 


««- 


J* , * < 


< T 


«L 


I « 








r w • 








• 


« k 


r »:• 








* k 


•• 




t ; 


t ‘ SlITv / 

. .ft* ■ 

> • 1 


“w^ jr 


?. V ,vi>jy 


<i 


s: 


*2* YfX 


4* . 


» -i 


r.w 


. > » 


• • 




T « 




Oil 




. *' 


... !W-':;.^;: ’:^ 






I 




'?;< pr >ijV •* 

^ . r** • 

■ .**T . ^ 

■-■ ’ ■• ?i^ 


« 

• -4 




;i 


V 


./ ,- 


1 .' 


^ • r- - ^ 

. -i •'r 




- 'ft/ • 

f ‘,. ■ o«( ,■*- 


I 




:. 7 .. Vs-;'* " i 


.: Ji 



Eli.- ‘^v --ft* • ^ ‘iH ‘-^‘r 




' .. r 









J'i • ■ # -'S 

■■ 

^ ri- 



ibf 


^^■•?v,vv i % 1 vias; :;HBi! 



D0n2313131b 




•J- I 








:. ,-4 • "V 

' v: ■ 


^ . ’'«l •• ' • 





